CHAPTER II. 



WALES AND MONMOUTHSHIRE. 



General Features. 



ALES, with tlie county of Monmouthsliire, forms a well-marked 

 geograpliical division of Great Britain, distinguished at once by its 

 mountainous character, its ancient rocks, and the origin of a vast 

 majority of its inhabitants. Its shores are washed on the north 

 by the Irish Sea as far as the mouth of the Dee, on the west by 

 St. George's Channel, and on the south by the Bristol Channel, whilst on the east 

 the country slopes down to the vale of the Severn, the hills lying to the west of 

 that river approximately forming its boundary on that side. Wales, compared 

 Avith the remainder of Great Britain, is but of small extent,* for it merely consists 

 of a two-horned peninsula jutting out westward ; but within its borders rise the 

 loftiest mountains met with to the south of the Scotch Grampians. This mountain 

 land, distinguished rather for its varied aspects, its wild yet picturesque valleys, 

 its rich verdure, its lakes and sparkling rivulets, than for the boldness of its 

 summits, is the most ancient soil of Southern Britain. Long before England had 

 emerged above the sea, the Laurentian, Silurian, and Cambrian rocks of Wales 

 rose as islands in the midst of the ocean. They are the vestiges of a Britain more 

 ancient than that now known to us as England and Scotland. And those who 

 people this ancient soil are distinguished from the other inhabitants by the 

 antiquity of their origin ; for they are the descendants of the aborigines of the 

 country, and can look upon Saxons, Jutes, Danes, and Normans as comparatively 

 recent intruders. 



The mountains of Wales do not form a continuous rang-e, or a regrular succès- 

 sion of ranges, but rather rise in distinct groups, separated by low passes, and 

 spreading out sometimes into elevated table-lands intersected by deep and fertile 

 valleys. The principal amongst these groups is that which occupies the whole 

 of Carnarvon, and within whicli rises the monarch of the Welsh mountains, 

 Snowdon,t thus named on account of the snow which remains on its summit for 



• Area, 7,957 square miles ; population (1861) 1,286,413— (1871) 1,412,083. 



t By the Welsh it is called Erj-ri, which some translate "Eagle's Rock," others "Snowy Mountain." 



