16 Among the Ancient Glaciers of North Wales, 
ishing slope and deeper intaglio of the striae. The moraine also of 
this glacier is wonderfully perfect. The cart-road from the now 
abandoned copper works is cut partly through the lateral and ter- 
minal moraines; and the sections might, save for the different 
geological character and the smaller size of the blocks, be that 
of the ancient moraine of the Mer de Glace between Les Tines and 
Lavanchi in the valley of Chamouni. There is the same utter 
absence of sorting in the disposition of the materials, and the same 
angularity in individual blocks — the whole being cemented together 
by a fine deposit of grit and sand. To use the words of Professor 
Forbes, in his description of the Chamouni moraine : *' We find the 
mound to be almost entirely composed of detached fragments, 
rough and angular, or only rounded by partial friction, and accu- 
mulated in the utmost disorder, mingled with sand, without any 
appearance of stratification." Among the fragments of stone ex- 
posed by the cuttiug are some very interesting ones. They have 
originally belonged to the bed, or to the containing wall of the 
glacier, much higher up, from which they have been detached after 
being highly polished and deeply striated ; and being now un- 
covered, they display the notchings and scourings, not, of course, 
in their proper and original directions, but just as they happened to 
have fallen when the stones were deposited in the places they now 
occupy. 
It must have been a strange scene of desolate magnificence that 
North Wales presented at the epoch I am writing of. There were 
Snowdon and his associated peaks, the centres of one vast system of 
glaciers, pouring down on every side, east, west, north, and south — 
the Vale of Llanberris choked with ice, and fed from the heights 
and recesses on either side — a great glacier, taking its origin in the 
deep basin between Snowdon and Lliwedd, streaming up the valley 
of Nant Gwynant, diverted a mile or two above the site of the 
sleepy little hamlet of Beddgelert, by the opposing rocks at the 
lower extremity of Llyn y-Ddinas, and at length struggling through 
the narrow gorge of Aberglaslyn, rounding and scoring its rugged 
sides to the height of hundreds of feet. Another great glacier 
probably descended through the deep inlet which reached from 
below Llanberris to the very heart of Snowdon, extending to within 
four or five miles of the present coast line, and leaving records of its 
passage which to this day are apparent on every uncovered surface 
of rock along the Llanberris and Carnarvon road. Nor did the 
Snowdon glaciers, though the greatest, constitute the only glacier 
