OF NORTH WALES. 1 
261 
After passing into the basin of Cardigan Bay, we had 
those observations relating to the effects of hardness of 
rock upon soil, vegetation, and animals, still furtlier con- 
firmed. In Llejn, on the south-west portion of th.e Car- 
narvonshire side of the basin, we found the slate transition 
rocks so soft and so decomposable, as to yield an ^lblmdant 
and productive mcald. At the other extremit}- of the 
basin, on the same side as in the district of Evionydd, on 
the contrary, from the rocks partaking of the same charac- 
ters as those on the Carnarvon side of the Menai Basin, we 
had a poor, meagre, gravelly soil ; vcgetjition scanty on the 
declivities of the mountains and that, from the good soil 
of the south-west end, or district of Lleyn, the cattle and 
sheep were nearly as good as those in Anglesea ; that the 
rearing of swine in great numbers for the English market 
was peculiar to this part of Carnarvonshire. 
That no workable slate was found in this side of Cardi- 
gan Bay basin ; that lead was found only at the south-west 
end of the Carnarvon side of the basin ; and that copper 
abounded in the hard rocks of the north-east extremity. 
That the whole Bay of Cardigan abounded in fish of ail 
sorts ; shoals of mackerel, and herring in their season : flat 
fish, turbot and sole, crab and lobster. 
On the Merioneth side of the Cardigan Bay basin, we 
had it bounded to the south by a chain of mountains called 
the Berwyn, parallel to that of Snowdon, and stretch- 
ing from south-west to north-east. That these moun- 
tains, though composed of transition slate, were much 
less vertical in their strata, less peaked in their outline, 
and. their rocks, yielding more readily to the action of the 
weather, produced more soil for plants than the Snowdon 
chain ; accordingly we found them more covered with al- 
pine plants and grasses. 
That copper was much rarer than lead in this range; 
