25^ ON THE GEOLOGY AND STATISTICS 
joins the sea. Few rivers in North Wales afford more in- 
teresting grand scenery than this. It takes its rise out of 
the Lake of Gwynant, which adorns the southern face of 
Snowdon ; next passes through another lake, Dinos, and, 
after tumbling over a ledge of rocks twelve feet high, 
forming the celebrated Salmon-leap of Pont Aberglassin, 
finishes its course at the Traeth Maur marsh. 
Nothing can be more opposite in appearance than the 
districts of Evionydd and Lleyn. The latter presents a 
surface broken into gentle inequalities, the hills that bound 
it to the north being low, and with easy sloping sides, ge- 
nerally clothed in vegetation, and along the shores of Car- 
digan Bay, towards Bardsey Island, distant a mile from 
the shore to the south-west, affording sweet beautiful sce- 
nery. On the contrary, Evionydd is enclosed on the north 
and east by the lofty Snowdon chain, having their declivi- 
ties almost perpendicular, rough, rugged and craggy ; and, 
though clothed in many places with beautiful copse-wood 
and thriving plantations, the general character of its scenery 
is bold, and highly romantic. 
What we have observed elsewhere, while considering the 
character of the soil as depending upon the nature of the 
rocks, whether it be good or bad, scanty or abundant, 
worthless or productive, is applicable, in considering this 
subject, in the districts of Llyen and Evionydd. 
Accordingly we find in Lleyn, where the rocks are of a 
soft and yielding transition-slate, that the soil is occasion- 
ally loam, but oftener of a light, argillaceous, sandy, and 
gravelly composition. In Evionydd, again, from the un- 
decomposing rocks upon which it rests, the soil is scanty, 
light, gravelly, with little argillaceous matter to give it ad- 
hesiveness. 
Not being so much exposed to the south-west winds as 
the Menai basin, the climate is on the whole milder. At 
