Short History of Wales | Page 4

and other societies. You will find articles of great value and interest over the names of F. H. Haverfield, J. W. Willis-Bund, Egerton Phillimore, the Honourable Mrs Bulkeley Owen (Gwenrhian Gwynedd), Henry Owen, the late David Lewis, T. F. Tout, J. E. Lloyd, D. Lleufer Thomas, W. Llywelyn Williams, J. Arthur Price, J. H. Davies, J. Ballinger, Edward Owen, Hubert Hall, Hugh Williams, R. A. Roberts, A. W. Wade-Evans, E. A. Lewis. These are only a few out of the many who are now working in the rich and unexplored field of Welsh history. I put down the names only of those I had to consult in writing a small book like this.
The sources are mostly in Latin or Welsh. Many volumes of chronicles, charters, and historical poems have been published by the Government, by the Corporation of Cardiff, by J. Gwenogvryn Evans, by H. de Grey Birch, and others. But, so far, we have not had the interesting chronicles and poems translated into English as they ought to be, and published in well edited, not too expensive volumes.
OWEN EDWARDS LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD.

CHAPTER I
--WALES

Wales is a row of hills, rising between the Irish Sea on the west and the English plains on the east. If you come from the west along the sea, or if you cross the Severn or the Dee from the east, you will see that Wales is a country all by itself. It rises grandly and proudly. If you are a stranger, you will think of it as "Wales"--a strange country; if you are Welsh, you will think of it as "Cymru"--a land of brothers.
The geologist will tell you how Wales was made; the geographer will tell you what it is like now; the historian will tell you what its people have done and what they are. All three will tell you that it is a very interesting country.
The rocks of Wales are older and harder than the rocks of the plains; and as you travel from the south to the north, the older and harder they become. The highest mountains of Wales, and some of its hills, have crests of the very oldest and hardest rock--granite, porphyry, and basalt; and these rocks are given their form by fire. But the greater part of the country is made of rocks formed by water--still the oldest of their kind. In the north-west, centre, and west--about two-thirds of the whole country,--the rocks are chiefly slate and shale; in the south-east they are chiefly old red sandstone; in the north-east, but chiefly in the south, they are limestone and coal.
Its rocks give Wales its famous scenery--its rugged peaks, its romantic glens, its rushing rivers. They are also its chief wealth-- granite, slate, limestone, coal; and lodes of still more precious metals--iron, lead, silver, and gold--run through them.
The highest mountain in Wales is Snowdon, which is 3,570 feet above the level of the sea. For every 300 feet we go up, the temperature becomes one degree cooler. At about 1,000 feet it becomes too cold for wheat; at about 1,500 it becomes too cold for corn; at about 2,000 it is too cold for cattle; mountain ponies graze still higher; the bleak upper slopes are left to the small and valuable Welsh sheep.
There are three belts of soil around the hills--arable, pasture, and sheep-run--one above the other. The arable land forms about a third of the country; it lies along the sea border, on the slopes above the Dee and the Severn, and in the deep valleys of the rivers which pierce far inland,--the Severn, Wye, Usk, Towy, Teivy, Dovey, Conway, and Clwyd. The pasture land, the land of small mountain farms, forms the middle third; it is a land of tiny valleys and small plains, ever fostered by the warm, moist west wind. Above it, the remaining third is stormy sheep-run, wide green slopes and wild moors, steep glens and rocky heights.
From north-west to south-east the line of high hills runs. In the north-west corner, Snowdon towers among a number of heights over 3,000 feet. At its feet, to the north-west, the isle of Anglesey lies. The peninsula of Lleyn, with a central ridge of rock, and slopes of pasture lands, runs to the south-west. To the east, beyond the Conway, lie the Hiraethog mountains, with lower heights and wider reaches; further east again, over the Clwyd, are the still lower hills of Flint.
To the south, 30 miles as the crow flies, over the slate country, the Berwyns are seen clearly. From a peak among these--Cader Vronwen (2,573 feet), or the Aran (2,970 feet), or Cader Idris (2,929 feet)-- we look east and south, over the hilly slopes of the upper Severn country.
Another 30 miles to the south rises green Plinlimmon (2,469 feet); from it we see the high