EARLY MINING SITES IN WALES 3°5 



In this part the mines were restarted in the early sixteenth century, but 

 little developed until the reigns of Elizabeth and her successors. The 

 German advisory engineers of that time had a developed mining technique ; 

 at some of the early mines, such as Cwmsymlog and Gwestyn, there are 

 rows of pits 3-5 yds. apart, like those in Central Europe. Hammer-stones 

 were not emploved (though the large crushing and sorting dumps on the 

 top of Halkyn Mt. cannot yet have used mechanical power), the rounded 

 glacial pebbles found on tips show no marks of use. The tips themselves 

 are large and well defined. The vein-outcrops were attacked by wide 

 horizontal opencasts, and adits were driven for drainage and haulage from 

 the bottoms of the valleys. The exploitation was by superposed levels 

 20-30 ft. apart (Stockwerkbau). It is probable that the stoping out of 

 the lodes was mainly in an upward rather than a downward direction. 



The stone-hammer people grubbed out their veins with small opencasts, 

 which they worked downwards to water-level. These workings have no 

 drainage ; they are usually 20-30 yds. long, as at Nantyricket Nantyrarian 

 and Ogof Widdon, 4-10 ft. wide according to the width of the vein, and 

 stop almost perpendicularly at each end, seldom continuing underground 

 with galleries. Haulage was therefore to the surface with a rope, and not 

 horizontally with a hand-car, probably a German invention of which a 

 specimen is said to have been found at Rhiw-rugos. If propping was once 

 used it has disappeared, and the removal or fall of the breccia has caused 

 the walls of the working to stand firm. Such work is obviously primitive. 

 The discovery of ore-bodies was haphazard ; the workings are always 

 situated where there was little detritus or boulder-clay, but save at 

 Nantyreira seem not to have been revealed in stream-beds, which were 

 perhaps overgrown. Normally one vein out of many, often a subsidiary 

 as at Nantyricket, was discovered ; the ancients had no geological sense 

 to seek for others or for its continuation. 



Another form of ancient working, known at Llanymynach Newtown 

 and in Monmouthshire, is an irregular cave following a small outcrop 

 on the hillside ; from this there branch off small winding galleries, which 

 grubbed out all ore within reach. 



It has not yet been possible to discover ancient smelting-places. Those 

 reported at Trefeglwys appear to be bloomeries, perhaps of the seventeenth 

 century, but information has been received about others near Bow Street 

 and Yspytty Ystwyth. It is particularly important to find slag-heaps, and 

 excavation at them should yield valuable information about primitive 

 furnaces. They must usually have been situated in the woodland near 

 the mines, though smelting was sometimes carried out also on settlements 

 such as Rhostryfan, Din Llugwy, etc. The slag is probably covered by 

 humus, but any information regarding it would be especially welcomed. 



In central Wales the distribution of hilltop and promontory camps in 

 the mining area is striking. These seldom, however, contain evidence of 

 metallurgy, and it may be doubted whether there is any necessary connection 

 between them and the mines. Detailed work with distribution maps will 

 be carried out later. 



The committee asks for a grant for next year to carry out excavations 

 and analyses of metal objects believed to be derived from Welsh mines. 



