90 
THE GEOLOGIST. 
matter the very dregs of earth may become redolent with life and 
beauty, our thoughts turn in reverent homage to the great planner 
and preserver of all things, by whose sometimes inscrutable, but 
always benevolent laws, the order and endurance of creation is main- 
tained. 
(To he continued.) 
ON THE SOUTH WALES COAL-FIELD. 
By G. p. Bevan, M.D., F.G.S. 
As the season for active out of door geological work is now ap- 
proaching, I propose to give a brief glance at some interesting 
features of the South "Wales coal-field, in the hopes that pedestrian 
geologists may be tempted to make it one of the scenes of their 
labours. And they will be richly rewarded ; for, though coal-fields 
generally give us an impression of a black, unsightly country, with- 
out vegetation or anything pleasant for the eye to rest upon, they 
are not all alike, and that of South Wales is as rich in beautiful scenery 
above ground, as it is in the precious mineral beneath. Glorious 
hills intersected by narrow valleys and wooded dells, each washed by 
its mountain-stream, and antiquities — in the shape of castles, abbeys, 
cromlechs, and cairns, may tempt the tourist to whom geology does 
not hold out sufiicient inducement. It is in outward features, which 
I shall first touch upon, that this differs so much from other coal- 
fields, the basin being more clearly marked, and the underlying grits 
and limestones, being more uniform in their development than in any 
district in Great Britain. Indeed, it is only in two places that the 
regularity of the basin is broken, viz., between Newton Nottage and 
the Mumbles, and at LlaneUy, in Caermarthenshire, and then solely 
because the coal-measures run under the respective bays of Swansea 
and Caemarthen. The basin, however, is not altogether round, but 
of an irregularly oblong shape, caused by the north and south 
boundaries approaching each other towards Pembrokeshire. The 
