RESIDENCE AT NEATH 249 



the distance into a warm yellow haze, at others affording a 

 view of the distant mountain ranges beyond. 



At twelve miles from the town we come to the little village 

 of Pont-nedd-fychan (the bridge of the little Neath river), 

 where we enter upon a quite distinct type of scenery, dependent 

 on our passing out of the South Wales coal basin, crossing 

 the hard rock-belt of the millstone grit, succeeded by the pic- 

 turesque crags of the mountain limestone, and then entering 

 on the extensive formation of the Old Red Sandstone. The 

 river here divides first into two, and a little further on into 

 four branches, each in a deep ravine with wooded slopes or 

 precipices, above which is an undulating hilly and rocky coun- 

 try backed by the range of the great forest of Brecon, with its 

 series of isolated summits or vans, more than two thousand 

 feet high, and culminating in the remarkable twin summits of 

 the Brecknock Beacons, which reach over twenty-nine hun- 

 dred feet. Within a four-mile walk of Pont-nedd-fychan 

 there are six or eight picturesque waterfalls or cascades, one 

 of the most interesting, named Ysgwd Gladys, being a minia- 

 ture of Niagara, inasmuch as it falls over an overhanging rock, 

 so that it is easy to walk across behind it. A photograph of 

 this fall is given here. Another, Ysgwd Einon Gam, is much 

 higher, while five miles to the west, near Capel Coelbren, is 

 one of the finest waterfalls in Wales, being surpassed only, 

 so far as I know, by the celebrated falls above Llanrhaiadr in 

 the Berwyn Mountains. From the open moor it drops sud- 

 denly about ninety feet into a deep ravine, with vertical preci- 

 pices wooded at the top all round. In summer the stream is 

 small, but after heavy rains it must be a very fine sight, as it 

 falls unbroken into a deep pool below, and then flows away 

 down a thickly-wooded glen to the river Tawe. 



Within a mile of Pont-nedd-fychan is the Dinas rock, a 

 tongue of mountain limestone jutting out across the millstone 

 grit, and forming fine precipices, one of which was called the 

 Bwa-maen, or bow rock, from its being apparently bent 

 double. Lower down there are also some curious waving 

 lines of apparent stratification, but on a recent examination I 

 am inclined to think that these are really glacial groovings 



