2!62 ON THE GEOLOGY AND STATISTICS 
that on their sides, and sometimes penetrating them in the 
form of veins, an argillaceous limestone was often seen, 
which was burned and applied to agricultural purposes. 
That no coal had been found, but abundance of peat 
along the shores of the Bay of Cardigan ; and that the best 
was inundated by the sea, but left bare at low water. 
That the ocean had made great encroachments on the 
coast of Merionethshire, as proved by that great stretch of 
embankment at Larn Badrig. 
Though at first sight this might appear a country fitted 
only to delight the lover of romantic scenery, yet we have 
found, in the short and hasty sketch which we have given, 
that few parts of the empire, of the same extent, contribute 
more to the common stock. Anglesea, as we have seen, 
besides the abundant agricultural produce it affords, has 
long supplied great stores of one of the metals most useful 
in the various arts. And Carnarvon, if we estimate the 
whole of its produce, will not suffer by a comparison with 
the best cultivated districts of England. 
Few districts can perhaps be more fitted to shew how 
much every part of a country is influenced by the state of 
manners and modes of life, than the one we have just en- 
deavoured to describe. 
If it be viewed as when under the dominion of the Bri- 
tons, we find it covered with forests, which afforded a shel- 
ter to the dark and bloody superstition of the Druids. 
The means of subsistence for man must have been limited 
and precarious; and no advantage seems to have been 
taken of the valuable internal resources which Nature has 
so amply provided for supplying the wants of the inhabi- 
tants. The principal remains that exist as indications of 
the state of the arts among this rude people, are the 
Druidical circles of stones to be seen in many places, but 
