Wales. 567 



Longinynd of Shropshire, there are tracts of land, 

 amounting to thousands upon thousands of acres, where 

 the country rises to a height of from 1,000 to 3,500 

 feet above the level of the sea. Much of it is mostly 

 covered with heath, and is therefore fit for nothing but 

 pasture land : but on the low grounds, and on the 

 alluvium of the rivers, there is often excellent soil. 

 The more important valleys also are much larger than 

 those of Cumbria, and the width of the alluvial flats is 

 proportionate to the size of their rivers. 



The Vale of Clwyd, in Denbighshire the substra- 

 tum of which consists of New Eed Sandstone, covered 

 by Grlacial debris, and bounded by high Silurian hills 

 is fertile, and wonderfully beautiful. The Conwy, the 

 Mawddach, the Dovey, the Ystwyth, the Aeron, and 

 the Teifi, are all bordered by broad, fertile, and well 

 wooded margins, above which rise the wild hills of 

 North and South Wales. The Towey of Caermarthen- 

 shire, the Cothi, and all the large rivers of Glamorgan- 

 shire, the Usk and the Wye, are unsurpassed for 

 quiet and fertile beauty. No inland river of equal 

 volume in Britain surpasses the Towey in its couise 

 from Llandovery to Caermarthen. Eapid, and often 

 wide, it flows along sometimes through broad alluvial 

 plains, bounded by wood-covered hills, the plains them- 

 selves all park-like, but with many a park besides, and 

 everywhere interspersed with pleasant towns, farms, 

 seats, and ruined castles. 



Taken as a whole, the eastern part of the country 

 of South Wales, in Breconshire and Monmouthshire, 

 and in the adjacent parts of England in Herefordshire, 

 and parts of Worcestershire, occupied by the Old Red 

 Sandstone, though hilly, and in South Wales occasion- 

 ally even mountainous, is naturally of a fertile kind. 



