WALES. 



49 



Plynlimmon * (2,481 feet), a ratlier tame mountaia range of Silurian slate 

 containing rich veins of lead ore, forms the connecting link between the 

 mountains of North and South "Wales. It occupies the very centre of the princi- 

 pality, and the Severn and the Wye have their origin in its valleys. The rano-e 

 which stretches thence south-westward as far as St. David's Head nowhere exceeds 

 a height of 1,800 feet. Another range extends along the right bank of the Severn, 

 terminating in Long Mountain (1,696 feet), on the border of Shropshire. The 

 valley of the Wye is bounded on one side by Eadnor Forest, and on the other 

 by the Epynt Hills : both are desolate mountain tracts, covered with mosses and 

 peat or thin herbage. The valley of the Usk separates the Epynt Hills from the 

 Black Mountains, or Forest Fawr, the highest range of Southern Wales, within 

 which the Brecknock Beacons attain a height of 2,163 feet. These mountains 

 are covered with herbage, and they derive their epithet " black " from the dark 



Fig. 22. — The Breckxock Beacoxs. 

 Scile 1 : 600,000. 



521: 



WoPGr. 3'4C 



10 MUes. 



appearance of the heath when out of blossom, and their generally desolate 

 character. These hills of South Wales cannot compare in picturesqueness with 

 those of the north, and the view afforded from many of their summits often 

 includes nothing but bogs or monotonous grassy hills. Less disturbed in their 

 geological structure, they are, on the other hand, richer in mineral wealth. 

 North Wales, besides yielding slate, lead, and a little copper, embraces a coal 

 basin of small extent, which is, however, likely to become exhausted before the close 

 of the century; but the carboniferous region which covers so vast an area in the 

 south is one of the most productive mineral districts of Great Britain. It was 

 first described by Owen towards the close of the sixteenth century. In area it 

 exceeds any one of the coal basins of England, and it reaches a depth of no less than 

 10,000 feet.f Of its hundred seams, sixty-six, of a total average thickness of 



* Or rather, Pum Lumon, or " Peak of Five Points." 

 t Edward Hull, " The Coalfields of Great Britain." 



