242 CORRESPONDENCE OF RAY. 



ally washing away and carrying down earth from the 

 mountains,* it puts me in mind of something pertinent 

 thereto, which I have observed in the mountains of 

 Caernarvonshire, viz. : 



1. First, that generally the higher the hdls are, the 

 more steep are their precipices and declivities (I except 

 the sea rocks), thus Moel y Wydhrha, y Grib gotch, and 

 twenty others that might be named, reputed the highest 

 hills in Wales, have the steepest rocks of any mountains 

 I have seen ; and that not only in their highest cliffs, but 

 also in most of their other crags, till you descend to the 

 lower valleys. This I can ascribe to nothing else but 

 the rains and snow which fall on those great mountains, 

 I think, in ten times the quantity they do on the lower 

 hills and valleys. 



2. I have observed a considerable quantity of the 

 chips or parings (if I may so call them) of these cliffs to 

 lie in vast heaps at the roots of them ; and these are of 

 several sorts and materials, being in some places covered 

 with grass, and in others as bare as the sea shore ; and 

 those bare places do consist sometimes of gravel, and an 

 innumerable number of rock fragments, from a pound 

 weight to twenty, &c., and are sometimes composed of 

 huge stones, from an hundred pound weight to several 

 tons. 



3. In the valleys of Lhanberys and Nant-Phrancon 

 the people find it necessary to rid theu- grounds often of 

 the stones which the mountain floods bring down ; and 

 yet notwithstanding this care they often lose considerable 

 parcels of land. 



4. I affirm, that by this means not only such moun- 

 tains as consist of much earth and small stones, or of 

 softer rocks, and such as are more easily dissoluble, are 

 thus wasted, but also the hardest rocks in Wales ; and 

 they seem to be as weighty, and of as firm and close a 

 texture as marble itself. It happened in the valley of 



* Dissol. of the World, p. 44. 



