303 REPORTS ON THE STATE OF SCIENCE, ETC. 



the lowest layer were several formless polished stone hammers. These 

 did not occur at higher levels, and the charcoal layers may be more recent ; 

 perhaps the earliest miners worked by fire-setting, and their successors, 

 in cleaning out the opencast, threw out the charcoal which was reposing in 

 it. The extent of the prehistoric workings seems to have been small. 

 Though chalcopyrite occurs at Nantyreira, the only ore found in the dumps 

 was galena and cerussite, and even this was rare. 



A thorough examination of the mine at Newtown was made with the per- 

 mission of Mr. F. Bennett Lloyd of the Celynog Estate Office. It has long 

 been known that there were old workings in Newtown Park, consisting of a 

 shaft and gallery. A lower adit, just above the river-level, is now closed. 

 The upper gallery has partly fallen in ; it cannot be followed very far, and it 

 branches on both sides. In the loose material of the floor was found what 

 seemed to be a circular chipped stone lid, such as are common in Wales but 

 difficult to date. Further evidence was, however, obtained from the river- 

 bank. The hill rises steeply, and immediately below it a soft yellow layer, 

 resembling denuded material, overlies stiff yellow clay, probably boulder- 

 clay in situ, which hardly emerges above the level of the water. In the 

 upper yellow layer were found fragments of slag and fused furnace lining ; 

 half-way up the hill was a fragment of metallic lead. These then appear to 

 be derived from a hilltop furnace, whose exact site could not be located. 

 It must clearly antedate the introduction of water-driven bellows, and is 

 not improbably Roman, as we have evidence for the intensive Roman occupa- 

 tion of the Upper Severn Valley and their interest in the mineral resources of 

 the district (e.g. slag and ore specimens from Caersws and Forden). 



Fresh evidence for the chronology of stone mining-tools has recently 

 been provided by a small excavation on a Roman tip on Parys Mt. and 

 by a preliminary survey of the Llandudno area. At the former the lowest 

 levels contain no stone tools and much quartz, and are clearly derived from 

 primitive working. The upper levels had many stone tools used as hammers, 

 muUers and querns. Mr. Fanning Evans reports the discovery on the 

 mountain of a proper saddle-quern, such as accompany stone hammers at 

 Cwm Ystwryth. Formless hammers found on the dumps at Great Orme's 

 Head exactly resemble those from Cwm Ystwyth. There is good evidence 

 for dating the Orme's Head mines to the later Roman period, and Parys 

 was probably exploited at the same time, though it is not unlikely that it did 

 not close down until after the Roman era. It thus appears that the formless 

 hammer-muller-quern is Roman, and we may therefore provisionally assign 

 to this period Cwm Ystwyth and the group of early workings round Plyn- 

 limon, as has long been suspected but has not been previously proved. 



The Orme's Head mines also yielded a stone muller of the shape of a 

 flattened sphere with a thumb-hole. Tools of this type are figured by 

 Evans, but little was loiown of their date. The Roman dumps appear 

 extensive, and are only partially covered by modern refuse ; it is hoped 

 later to carry out a detailed survey of them . 



From somewhere in the Trecastell mine Mr. Trevethan reports a large 

 perforated stone hammer. Near the bottom of the hill were found several 

 unperf orated smoothed stone hammers, differing from the previous group 

 in having a slight rill for a handle. They had almost certainly been washed 

 down from an old series of tips at the first and second levels. The workings 

 corresponding to these tips have been cut with iron gads, and it is almost 

 certain that the ore was extracted on wheeled trolleys or sledges. The 

 latter feature seems medieval in all parts of Europe. The former are not 

 known at any Roman mine in Wales save Dolaucothy, which is stylistically 

 advanced probably because it was a state-directed enterprise. Thus we 



