306 Roman Mining Operations on the Borders of Wales. 



was plainly indicated on the surface of the earth. From the 

 copper and lead of Shropshire we find few, if any, traces 

 of their labours until we reach the mountains of Flintshire, 

 where copper and lead again presented themselves on or 

 near the surface. We are now, no doubt, in the country 

 of the Cangi, which, stretching along the coast districts to 

 Bangor, is full of mineral wealth; but I must pass over it 

 briefly. The remains of Roman lead-mines are met with in 

 almost every part of this district, and they usually present 

 features similar to those observed at Shelve, in Shropshire. It 

 is a remarkable circumstance that, in the latter locality, and 

 similarly in the mining districts of Montgomeryshire and at 

 Llanymynech, we are so entirely ignorant of any deposits of 

 scoriae, or slag, that we might suppose that the ore had been 

 carried away to be smelted elsewhere, were not this hypothesis 

 contradicted by the discovery in the immediate neighbourhood 

 of the pigs of lead ready for exportation. This is not the case 

 in Flintshire, where the land bordering on the coast to the west 

 of Flint is covered with thick layers of lead scoriae, deposited 

 in the same manner as the iron scoriae on the borders of the 

 Forest of Dean. These scoriae are found chiefly at Croes-Ati, a 

 kind of eastern suburb of the town of Flint, and in the adjoin- 

 ing parish of Northop ; and, like the iron scoriae of the south, 

 the process of smelting had been performed so imperfectly that 

 in the time of Pennant, who is our chief authority on the traces 

 of old mining operations in this part, people collected them and 

 subjected them again to the process of smelting, and thus ob- 

 tained large quantities of metal.* Pennant further informs 

 us that rudely made pick-axes had been found in the Roman 

 mines in Flintshire; and that distinct marks of fire were 

 found in the deep parts, as though the rock had been heated 

 and cold water thrown on it while hot to make it crackf — a 

 process which is alluded to by Pliny. Pennant had an iron 

 wedge, thickly incrusted with lead, which had been found in 

 the ancient workings in the parish of D}"searth. 



From the quantity of scoria? found at Croes-Ati and Northop 

 we are justified in supposing, that the lead-ore was brought 

 down from the Flintshire mountains to be smelted at this spot; 

 and the activity of the miners of this district is proved hy the 

 great numbers of Roman pigs of lead, all belonging to early 

 emperors, and bearing the mark de.ceang, which have been 

 found in the adjacent county of Chester. One of these was 

 found in 1838, at about a mile from Chester, in excavating for 

 the railway to Crewe, and bore the date of the third consulate 

 of Vespasian, a.d. 74. In the time of Camden no less than 



* Pennanfs Tours in Wales, vol. i. p. 71. t Ibid. vol. i. p. 74. S:c also, 



vol. iii. p. 58. 



