every side, on account of the remarkable relation which they bear one to another. But it is at a spot about ten miles eastward of the Van, that the Black Mountains attain their greatest elevation. The Brecknockshire Van or Beacons, the Bannan Brecheiniog, the Cader Arthur, are the various names of this elevated spot, which rises to a height of about 2900 feet, the highest in South Wales, though lower than some of the elevations in North Wales. Under the southern declivity of the highest peak is a small lake, called Llyn Cwm Lywch, which is the source of the small river Tarrell. The Caermarthenshire Van has a similar small lake near the summit, which forms the source of the river Usk. That portion of the Black Mountains which lies eastward of the Brecknockshire Van belongs chiefly to the limestone formation, and is of less elevation than the western portion. Nearer to the Glamorganshire border are the high, steep, and barren hills which mark the northern outcrop of the great iron and coal district; and throughout this part of the country the scenery is stern, the roads rugged, the villages few, and the population scanty.

Northward of the main road through the county, is another group of mountains, the Eppynt, near which is the lofty ridge of Mynydd Mawr. These mountains stretch across from Cardiganshire to Radnorshire, where they are stopped by the river Wye; and they thus cut off in a singular manner the northern part of Brecknockshire from the rest of the county. This northern part is still more thinly inhabited, and is still less traversed by roads, than the extreme south of the county; its barren hills are only available as summer pastures for sheep. Of the towns which stand on the Wye, at the north-eastern margin of the county, such as Hay and Builth, we here say nothing; they scarcely belong to our present district.

If, instead of leaving Brecon by the western route into Caermarthenshire, we turn towards the north, we shall find our road crossing the eastern part of the Eppynt Hills into Radnorshire, which county it joins close to the town of Builth; or if we take the route from Hereford, we enter this county on its eastern margin. Radnorshire is so far beyond the limits of the mineral field, which is here the chief object of our attention, that we can give it but a hasty notice. Instead of having a particular chain of mountains in a definite direction, this county has groups scattered irregularly over nearly the whole of the surface. There is, how ever, an approach towards a line of mountains along the south-east side, another along the north-east side, and another along the north-west; leaving a kind of hollow basin in the centre of the county, where the rivers Ithon, Cymaron, Clywedog, and others meet. Various portions of these mountains obtain the names of Radnor Forest, Clas Hill, and Cwm Toyddwr Hills. The forest of Radnor is the loftiest mountain district in the county, and attains a height of nearly three thousand feet. Of the towns, Rhayadyr belongs to the Wye valley. Presteign, close upon Herefordshire (indeed part of the parish is in the latter county) is

prettily situated in the midst of a fertile vale surrounded by hills, of which some are richly wooded. Woollens and flannels used to be manufactured in the town; but malt is now the chief product of the place. Knighton, also situated near the Herefordshire border, has the Welsh name of Trev-y-Clawdd, signifying the town upon the dyke. It stands close to the stupendous rampart called Offa's Dyke, which the king of the Mercians raised as a line of separation between his own dominions and Wales. The town has a fine situation on an eminence on the south bank of the river Tewe, and at the head of a sheltered and well-timbered vale. New Radnor has sadly fallen from its once palmy condition. Its Welsh name (the Welsh names are always expressive) is Maes-Yred, which is said to mean the imbibing meadow,' and to be derived from the circumstance of the little river Somergil sinking into the earth in the vicinity of the town, and following a subterranean course for some distance. There was a strong castle in the town, belonging to the Mortimers; and this castle was the scene of many stirring conflicts in early time; but it was taken and destroyed by Owen Glendower (Owain Glyndwr) in 1401, and the town seems to have fallen into insignificance from that time. Henry VIII. made it the county town for some time; but this privilege has since been transferred to Presteign; and New Radnor is now very little more than an agricultural village.

Merthyr Tydvil is certainly one of the most remarkable towns in the kingdom. It is not only figuratively but literally true, that Merthyr has not had time to wash itself, to dress itself, to provide the outward decencies and put on the outward attractions which our towns generally try to exhibit. It has grown too fast; and like all too rapid growths, the increase shows itself in one particular direction, and not proportionably in all. The various elements which form society have not grown by equal steps; there is very little that can be called a middle class, to create those multitudinous buildings and institutions and usages which depend more upon the middle class than upon the higher or the lower.

The name of Merthyr Tydvil had a pretty origin, whether truly told or not. The county tradition tells us that in the fifth century Tydvil, or Tydfyl, daughter of Brychan, Prince of Brycheiniog in this county, was regarded as a merthyr or martyr. A band of Saxons and Irish Picts, attacked the castle of the prince, and slaughtered him, his son, and his daughter. From some circumstances which do not appear to have been recorded, the maiden became more famed than her father or brother; and a church was built near the

scene of slaughter, and dedicated to Tydvil the Martyr, or Merthyr Tydvil.

Merthyr continued till the middle of the last century to be an obscure village, noticed only in Welsh annals as containining an ancient border fortress, called Morlais Castle. This fortress, having been the scene of many a contest between the lords of Glamorgan and Brecknock, was demolished by the parliamentary forces during the seventeenth century. There is a curious journal, said to be kept by the incumbent of the parish, which contains an entry of an equally extraordinary and undesirable character. It appears that the first congregation of dissenters known to have assembled in Wales established a chapel at Merthyr in 1620; and these dissenters, not satisfied with ordinary freedom of conscience, were in the habit of entering the parish church in a body, during the performance of Divine service, and forcibly wresting the Book of Common Prayer from the hands of the officiating minister; and when he ascended the pulpit to preach, a dissenting preacher would climb up into one of the yew trees in the churchyard, and commence an address to his followers. Whatever may have been the cause of these unseemly tumults, dissenting chapels are now very numerous in Merthyr and in most parts of Wales, and form quite a distinctive feature both in the buildings and the society of the principality.

There seem to have been slight indications that ironmines were wrought on a small scale near Merthyr many generations past; and it is known that charcoalron was made at the beginning of the last century, in furnace where the Pen-y-darren works now stand. But it was about the middle of the century that the sudden start in prosperity occurred. Mr. Anthony Bacon obtained, at a rental of only £200 per annum, a lease, for ninety-nine years of a mining district near Merthyr, extending eight miles in length by four in breadth. He established the works at Cyfarthfa; and during the American war he supplied the Government with iron guns. He afterwards made a singular contract with a Mr. Homfray, by which the latter was to lease the works, and to take all the coal and iron he might want at certain fixed prices. This lease passed into the hands of Mr. Tanner, and then to Mr. Crawshay. Mr. Homfray afterwards established the Pen-y-darren works, and with Mr. Crawshay planned and constructed the canal from Merthyr to Cardiff. This canal gave an amazing impetus to the industry of the district, on account of the facilities thereby afforded for the export of iron and coal. After the death of Mr. Bacon, various changes were made in the ownership of the various iron-works which had become established in the district; and they have now settled down into four or five establishments of great magnitude, at which the mass of the inhabitants are employed. These works are the Dowlais (Sir John Guest & Co.), the Cyfarthfa (Messrs. Crawshay), the Plymouth (Messrs. Hill), the Pen-y-Darren (Messrs. Thompson), the Hirwain (Messrs. Crawshay), and two or three of smaller rank.

No place can illustrate the general character of the mining district better than Merthyr. We ascend the valley of the Taff from Cardiff; and when we reach the point where the Morlais enters the Taff, we find ourselves in the heart of a hilly region. Here Merthyr stands; for it is here that the mineral riches come near the surface. From the southern limit of this extraordinary town, to the farther extremity of Dowlais, is nearly two miles and a half; and the whole of this distance is inhabited by persons exclusively, or almost exclusively, dependent on the vast iron-works of the district. The lowest part of the town is about five hundred feet above Cardiff; and the highest part of Dowlais is five hundred feet higher still; so that this second distance of five hundred feet represents the degree of ascent through the town. Such a town might be kept very clean, if proper means set to work. Is there not justification for a little reproof of the wealthy men who possess the great works of this neighbourhood, that not one yard of sewer or drain exists in this town of forty thousand inhabitants? And the lamps in the streets, and the paving of the roads, and the sweeping of the mud, and the supplying of water-there is so little to say that is creditable on these subjects, in respect to the present state of Merthyr, that we gladly escape it altogether. Happily, we have a Health of Towns' Act; and the provisions of this Act are about to be extended to Merthyr.

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There are four entrances to the Merthyr district: the busy route up the valley of the Taff from the south; the dreary mountain-route from Brecon on the north; the little less dreary road from Swansea on the west; and the Abergavenny road on the east. But whichever we take, the town presents nearly the same appearance-rows of poor houses on either side of dirty streets. Here we find, on a height, the lordly residence of the chief owner of the Dowlais works-there, the Castle' of the Cyfarthfa magnate at another place the mansion of the Pen-y-darren proprietorand so of one or two others; but all else is coal and iron, dirt and smoke. Better it is not to see Merthyr itself by daylight: go at night, when the mountain. fires throw around the whole scene a rough grandeur not to be paralleled in any other part of our island. The Merthyr men are proud of their town at night, but not by day.

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We will now glance rapidly at the Dowlais works, the most celebrated in Wales.

After toiling up the steep street from Lower Merthyr to Dowlais, we find vast works on both sides of the road-furnaces of every size and shape, and vast bodies of smoke wreathing up the mountain sides. The Dowlais Company, of which Sir John Guest is the chief partner, own a vast tract of country, where they mine their own coal, iron, and limestone, and cast them into the huge furnaces which yield the molten iron. It is such a combination of resources that gives magnitude to these establishments. There has been constructed, within the last few years, a second or subsidiary set of buildings at Dowlais, on the northern

or left-hand side of the high road; and these, together with the older or more southern works, contain no fewer than 18 blast-furnaces, 77 puddling - furnaces, and 66 balling-furnaces, making 161 furnaces in all, besides refining-furnaces or refineries. Unless in very busy times, some of these furnaces are out of work; but when fully employed, they give occupation to the enormous number of 6,000 persons!-a number not equalled by any other iron-work in the world. About 1,000 tons of coal per day are used at the works.

The spot of ground at these works where fourteen blast furnaces are ranged side by side in semicircle is the most striking of the whole, and to which there is nothing like a parallel in any district, or even in any country. Around the furnaces, on the outside of the semicircle, are large mounds of cinders or slag, which form a platform nearly on a level with the top of the furnaces; but within the semicircle, the spectator stands on a level with the bottom of the furnaces, and looks up at those vast erections. They are brick structures about fifty feet in height, of great diameter; and day and night, from one year's end to another, they are filled from bottom to top with fiercely burning materials. The materials are supplied near the top; while at the bottom are openings through which the molten metal flows out.

We must mount to the platform, or upper level, to watch the commencement of the works. To this platform the ironstone, the coal, and the limestone are brought by railways, which converge at this spot from the mountain districts on all sides. Here are the kilns in which the ore is roasted or calcined, to drive off the sulphur- a process which fills the air around, and the lungs of the calciners, with sulphur. Into the large jaws of the blast-furnace these, and all the other materials, are thrown. The iron ore is combined with a little ore from other districts, to impart a combination of qualities; and to these the coal and limestone are added. Day after day are these substances poured into the four doors which open near the top of each furnace, to supply the void which is occasioned by the drawing forth of the melted metal nearly fifty feet below. What a spectacle it is when, one of these doors being opened, the men wheel a carriage filled with material to the burning cavity! The heat is such as no one but those initiated can encounter; and the precipitation of the coal or iron into the fearful cauldron can hardly be watched without a shudder. From all the four doors of all the fourteen furnaces the flame and heat shoot forth fearfully-or, more correctly, the flame is seen through the doors.

Descending to the lower platform, it is interesting to notice the blast pipe, which, acting precisely as the common domestic bellows, maintains a fierce heat within the furnace. In most parts of England and Scotland the hot blast is used in iron works, by which much fuel is economized and time saved; but as the Welsh coal is well adapted for smelting, it is used at the Welsh works with the cold blast. There are pipes placed between and around the furnaces near the lower part,

in such fashion that the nozzles or ends of the pipes enter each furnace at three apertures; and steamengines of enormous power impel a blast with irresist ible force through the pipes into the furnaces. Thus the operations go on-coal and ore and limestone are hurled in from above; air is forced in from below; and the fiery monster thus continues, even for thirty or forty years uninterruptedly, working out his gigantic chemical processes. At stated intervals, when sufficient molten iron has collected at the bottom of the furnace, the furnace is tapped at the bottom, and the brilliant stream rushes out, to fill up certain channels made in the earthen or sandy platform to receive it.

The processes which the iron undergoes after this preliminary smelting have been briefly noticed in a former page; where also has been given a sketch of the buildings appropriated to those structures. We will therefore leave Merthyr Dowlais, and pass the Plymouth and Pen-y-Darren works, which present similar features to Dowlais, but on a much smaller scale. We cannot, however, quit this remarkable town without quoting a description given by one who spent a Saturday evening at Merthyr, and who knows how much there is to learn of artizan-life on a Saturday evening in a busy town.

"The scene from six to ten o'clock on Saturday evening is one of the most extraordinary I ever witnessed. In this interval, what one might suppose the entire labouring population of Merthyr passes through its crowded market-hall. All are dressed in their Sunday clothing, clean, warm, and comfortable. It is not only the field of supply, but evidently the promenade of the working classes. Every face is smiling; pleasant greetings and friendly jokes are freely exchanged; all is happiness. The week's money is in the pocket, and the pleasurable excitement of bargain-driving, in which the Welsh are proficient, goes bravely forward. One division of the market is appropriated to butcher's meat; another to vegetables; a third to poultry and butter; a fourth to dried stores of bacon, cheese, and herrings; a fifth to apples, eggs, and fruit. Of the first named in this division, judging by the quantities for sale, there must be a large consumption. There are also stalls for every description of hardware and other shop goods. Hatters, drapers, shoemakers, tinmen, ironmongers, and even booksellers, here drive an active and thriving trade. Wandering about amongst these, accompanied with their wives bearing baskets, you see the sallowfaced hollow-eyed firemen (men employed at the hottest part of the iron-works), the noisy colliers, the prudent and saving miners, the jovial Irish labourersall intent upon business, which they make a pleasure. Vociferous groups of boys, set loose from the works, rudely rush through this motley assembly, to the disturbance of the stocking-men, who with their woollen wares depending from a horizontal stick, half obstruct the way; and to the annoyance of the redcloaked, hat-covered women, who pay them back with blows, if active enough to reach them. Outside the market-house are booths and shows, with their

yellow flaming lamps, flaunting pictures, and obstreperous music. Groups of Welsh ballad-singers shouting with stentorian voices, and a row of stalls where the fathers put their boys to shoot for nuts or gingerbread at a wide-mouthed puppet or a well-worn target, complete this lively and striking scene."-Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle.

CYFARTHFA, ABERDARE, AND THE MONMOUTHSHIRE

COLLIERIES.

Before we quit the immediate neighbourhood of Merthyr-Tydvil, we must visit the important iron-works of Cyfarthfa, situated at the north-west extremity of

that town.

Mr. Crawshay's account of the origin of one of the finest iron-works in the world, and of the rise of the family to which it belongs, is too instructive to be passed over here; we cannot resist the desire to give it in his own words. The Stephensons and the Crawshays are themselves their best biographers. On the 25th of October, 1847, Mr. Crawshay gave a festive entertainment to the persons in his employ; and on that occasion he spoke as follows:—

"I ask not for public life-I never did; my whole object being to enjoy the esteem of those I see before me, and of the men whom I employ,--to know that I enjoy their good-will is my greatest satisfaction. God grant that my sons, at sixty years of age, may receive the same compliment from your successors. My connection with this place is so well understood, that little remains for me to tell you; but if I do describe to you the first part of my grandfather's life, I trust that you will receive it in the way that I intend it. I mean that it should be heard, not by setting suns in the world--but by rising suns. And think not, gentlemen, that I am proud to make a boast of my origin; although I tell these things, and am in one sense proud of them, yet I do not boast of them. My grandfather was the son of a respectable farmer at Normanton, in the county of York. At the age of fifteen, father and son differed; my grandfather could not agree with his father, for reasons unknown to me; and my grandfather, an enterprising boy, left Normanton for London, and rode on his own pony. When he got to London, which in those days was an arduous task of some sixteen or twenty days' travelling, he found himself as destitute of friends as he possibly could be. He sold his pony for fifteen pounds; and during the time that the proceeds of the pony kept him, he found employment at an iron-warehouse, kept by Mr. Bicklewith. His occupation was to clean the counting-house, to put the desks in order for his master and the clerks, and to do anything else that he was told to do. By industry, integrity, and perseverance, he gained his master's favour; and in the course of a few months he was considered decidedly better than the boy who had been there before him. He was termed the Yorkshire boy; and the Yorkshire boy, gentlemen, progressed in his master's favour by his activity, integrity, and perse

verance. He had a very amiable and good master; and at the end of a very short period, before he had been two years in his place, he stood high in his master's confidence. The trade in which he was engaged was only a cast-iron warehouse; and his master assigned to him, the Yorkshire boy, the privilege of selling flat-irons,-the things with which our shirts are flattened. The washerwomen of London were sharp folks; and when they bought one flat-iron they stole two. Mr. Bicklewith thought the best person to cope with them would be a person working for his own interest, and a Yorkshireman at the same time. My grandfather sold these articles; and that was the first matter of trading that ever he embarked in in his life. By honesty and perseverance he continued to grow in his master's favour, who, being an indolent man, in a few years retired and left my grandfather in possession of this cast-iron business in London. That business was carried on on the very site where I now spend my days,-in York-yard, London. Various vicissitudes in trade took place in the course of time. My grandfather left his business in London, and came down here; and my father, who carried it on, supplied him with money almost as fast as he spent it here-but not quite so fast; and it is there I spend my time in selling the produce of this county,—and you know to what an extent the iron produce of this country has risen up. My grandfather established the iron-works at Cyfarthfa; he was only left three-eighths of it; but by purchase he obtained the whole of it, and by his benevolence I have succeeded to it."

In quitting the Dowlais works for a visit to the Cyfarthfa, we leave the largest in the world for the finest in the world; for this we believe is the relative estimate formed of them by competent persons. The general arrangements at Cyfarthfa are more complete than at any other works. The works at Cyfarthfa, Ynysfach, and Hirwain, comprising fifteen blast-furnaces, are all said to belong to one single individual, Mr. William Crawshay--at least, no name but Crawshay is associated with them. More than 50,000 tons of bar-iron are made here annually, and above 800 tons of coal are consumed daily. At Dowlais, steam-engines supply the moving power; but at Cyfarthfa the river Taff is made to give motion, except in dry summer weather, to magnificent water-wheels which move the machinery. The furnaces are perhaps not superior in efficiency to those at Dowlais; but the general plan and localisation of the works are more systematic, effective, and thoughtful for the work-people employed. The castings of huge masses of iron are among the most remarkable products of Cyfarthfa. The splittingmill, by which a rod of iron is at one operation lengthened, widened, thinned, and cut into strips the proper size for nail-rods, is associated with a wellknown story told by Coleridge, respecting the rise of the Foley family. An English fiddler discovered the Swedish process, by fiddling his way to Sweden for that purpose.

The Cyfarthfa works, as well as those at Dowlais,