72 THE BEITISH ISLES. 



Wales contains a valuable natural-history collection. Landore, a suburb of Swan- 

 sea, is well known for its steel works. 



Of/sferniouf/i, on the western side of Swansea Bay, has grown into a favourite 

 watering-place. The Neath enters Swansea Bay to the east of Swansea. Briton 

 Ferry, at its mouth, has iron and tin-plate works, but is surpassed in importance 

 by Neath, a few miles up the river, where copper smelting is carried on, and 

 whence coal is exported in considerable quantities. Abtrafon, at the mouth of the 

 A. von, has copper works, and carries on a large trade. The small port of Porth- 

 caul depends for its prosperity upon the coal mines of Cicmdii, in the interior of the 

 county. Still proceeding up the Bristol Channel to its narrowest part, where the 

 estuary of the Severn may be said to begin, we find ourselves opposite the port of 

 Cardiff, one of the most important in Europe. Though commanded by an old 

 castle, in which Robert, the eldest son of the Conqueror, lingered a captive for 

 "thirtv years, and which has been restored as a residence of the Marquis of Bute, 

 Cardiff is essentially a modern town, with broad, clean streets. The exports of 

 coal and iron from the Taff valley are the great source of its prosperity, and since 

 the opening of the famous Bute Docks its growth has been rapid. Roath, Canton, 

 and Penarth are suburbs of Cardiff, and Llandaff, the seat of a bishopric founded in 

 the fifth century, lies 2 miles to the north-west of it. Its cathedral has recently 

 been restored. Coicbridge and Bridgend are the principal towns in the Yale of 

 Glamorgan, which extends from Llandaff to Swansea Bay. 



The towns in the basin of the Taff depend upon their collieries and iron works 

 for their prosperity, and like Cardiff, their principal shipping port, they suffered 

 much during the depression of trade. Merthyr Tydvil, high up in this 

 valley, and close to the borders of Brecknockshire, is the chief amongst them, 

 though it consists of an agglomeration of factories and dwelling-houses rather 

 than of a compactly built town. Its mines yield coal and excellent iron ore, 

 and as lime, which plays so important a part in the manufacture of iron, is found 

 close to the coal, the conditions are as favourable as possible for the development 

 of the iron and steel industry. The whole of this district is dotted over with iron 

 and steel works, railways intersect each other in all directions, and the lurid glare 

 of smoking heaps of slag lights up the night. The iron works of Boic/ais, a suburb 

 of Merthyr Tydvil, give occasionally employment to 20,000 men, and rank with the 

 largest works of the kind in existence. Cyfarthfa, another of these workmen's cities, 

 formerly enjoyed the monopoly of casting all the guns required by the British 

 Government. It was here that Trevethick constructed his first traction engine. 



Aherdare and Mountain Ash, on the Cynon, a tributary of the Taff ; Newbridge 

 (Pontypridd), at the mouth of the Rhondda valley ; and other towns along the canal 

 which connects Merthj'r Tydvil with Cardiff, are dependent upon their collieries 

 and iron works for existence. They possess hardly a feature to mitigate their 

 rough and grimy aspect, and it is a relief to turn from them to the fine ruins 

 of the feudal stronghold of Caerphilly, 8 miles to the north of Cardiff, in the 

 valley of the Rumney. 



MoxMOUTHSHiEE extends from the Rumney to the Lower Wye, its central 



