THE SUMMIT OF SNOWDON. 
JpuM^lHE most prosaic and commonplace person must feel 
KmSM there is something awful and sacred about the 
highest point of a great mountain. The topmost crag 
of Snowdon, the loftiest point in England or Wales, 
reigning over so magnificent a prospect, so beautiful in its 
natural form, and crowning so mighty a king among mountains, 
must, one would have thought, have commanded the veneration 
of the English people, and been carefully guarded against all 
injury or defilement. It belongs to three rich land-owners, and 
it would have been perfectly easy for them to have proved them- 
selves fit guardians of such a spot, simply by refusing to allow 
any harm to be done to the natural outline of the crag, and by 
insisting on the removal of the horrible mass of litter and refuse 
which is now making the spot into an ash-heap. The owners 
have however, apparently, cared for it only as something out of 
which to make money. They have allowed two hideous corru- 
gated iron shanties called “ The Hotel ” to be erected at the 
very summit, so that the form of the crag is quite distorted as 
seen from all sides, and from almost any distance. A straight 
artificial terrace emphasises the unnatural line of the “ Hotel,” 
and a brick wall (without any other use or object, except, I was 
told, the maintaining of some one’s “ rights ”) has been carried 
for some yards along the edge of the crag. Bricks, corrugated 
iron, and straight lines on the very summit of Snowdon ! Can one 
imagine that any civilised owner of such a spot would tolerate 
so gross an outrage ? But this is perhaps not the worst. The 
accumulated rubbish of years is scattered everywhere : all the 
ashes, vegetable and other refuse from “ The Hotel ” are merely 
thrown out upon the mountain-side : at the very door of the 
hotel lay (when I was there) an unsightly heap of broken boxes, 
jammy papers, and so on : one could not move without being 
aware of the peculiarly offensive form of litter caused by 
trippers. 
Now is all this inevitable in a place visited daily, in the 
season, by hundreds of people ? I protest strongly that it is 
not. A new member of the Selborne Society, who called my 
attention to the subject a few weeks ago, suggested that the 
railway (which of course brings so many more people, and has 
done so much to vulgarise the mountain) would now make it 
perfectly easy to remove daily all the refuse and litter in bins, 
provided by the “ Railway and Hotel Company” for that 
purpose. He felt so deeply that it did not help one to enjoy 
the dawn to find that one was standing on an ash-heap that he 
offered to share the initial expense of clearing Snowdon if the 
Railway and Hotel Company could be induced to insist on the 
manager of the Hotel keeping it clear. 
