24i4i ON THE GEOLOGY AND STATISTICS 
are annually sent away. The sheep are also numerous. 
They are of such a size as, at two or three years old, to 
average from 10 to 16 ft) the quarter; and when clipped, 
which happens twice annually, to prevent the scab, as is 
imagined, they yield from 1 1 to S| ft) of wool. As many 
of these animals as 7000 are annually driven to England. 
So indifferent are the fences of this island generally, that it 
is a common practice to fasten the fore and hind legs of 
these sheep, on each side together, with a straw-band, to 
prevent them leaping the fences. This custom, indeed, is 
almost universally adopted in North Wales with the sheep, 
which are as nimble as deer, and, when no way fettered, 
will clear any ordinary wall. 
Angle sea appears to have been formerly covered with 
wood. According to Tacitus when the Roman general 
Suetonius Paulinus invaded it, to destroy the Druidical 
superstition, it was covered with forests of oak. It is also 
said that the King of Man was supplied with ship-timber 
from this island. But the increase of population, and the 
extension of cultivation, have effaced all traces of these an- 
cient tracts of forest-land. 
Along the shores of the Menai Strait, between Beaumaris 
and Llanidan, protected by a slight ridge rising to the west, 
from the south-west gales, wood of all kinds grows well. 
In every other place it is rarely met with. 
Anglesea, from the variety of the rocks of the transition 
and secondary classes, opens a wide and interesting field 
for the mineralogist, and particularly as it contains one of 
the largest metallic deposites in Great Britain. 
Though Anglesea does not possess, like the Carnarvon 
side of the basin, from the softer character of its component 
rocks, slate sufficiently durable for roofing, it is compen- 
* — " Excisique luci, saevis superstitionibus sacri." 
