eye by the plantations of pine and fir, reaching from base to summit.

By the wayside are walls and hedges glowing with all the colours of the rainbow. Foxgloves of intense purple, wild roses of the deepest pink, with here and there wild geraniums, wild strawberries, and rasps; and as to the ferns, we feel, when we stoop to pluck a frond, to be used for driving off the troublesome flies, as though we were committing a desecration upon nature, in thus deforming the graceful cluster which shoots its arching stems on every side.

But we must quit this lovely scene, only, however, to approach another almost as beautiful. Having partaken of luncheon at the "Half-way House," a meal rendered most enjoyable by the healthful exercise of a rapid walk amongst these glorious scenes, we hastened onwards, and soon arrived at a large waterwheel, a mile beyond Pont Ddu, which is used for grinding the copper ore extracted from a neighbouring mine. Here we diverged from the main road, and, under the guidance of a blacksmith, who has a smithy hard by, and who was unable to speak a word of "Sassenach" (Saxon, or (Saxon, or English), whilst we are equally well versed in "Cymraeg " (Cambrian, or Welsh), we found the "engine-house" of the Garthgill Mine. And here another beautiful scene presented itself to our gaze.

In the mining districts, the "Black Country" of Northumberland, Lancashire, and Staffordshire, nature appears to don sackcloth and ashes; to mourn, as it were, over the robberies hourly perpetrated in her domains. But here, amongst these lovely hills, she welcomes the enterprising miner, and tempts him to commence his operations by laying her treasures at his feet, and holding out to him every inducement that her charms can afford.

On the one hand, we find nought but smoke and arid desolation; and, if some unsuspecting plant, some blade of grass or tender floweret, should venture to extrude itself above the surface, the noxious gases of the furnace, factory, or mine, at once deprive it of its tints, and cause it soon to droop and die for very shame. Here, on the other hand, the elements and nature co-operate with man. The rushing waterfall, bubbling and gurgling amongst the rocks, stops in its headlong course, and, flowing gently through an artificial duct, assists to turn the wheel, and work the pestles of the miner; whilst the clear stream below serves at once to slake his thirst, to lave and cool his heated brow, and cleanse his ore from dross and from impurities.

'Twas such a scene as this that we encountered here.

From the "engine-house" (to be presently described), we continued to climb up the hill, accompanied now by the over

looker of the mine, and, after traversing a beautiful meadow on the mountain slope, where they were busy getting in the hay, and passing more than one working, at which operations had just been commenced, we suddenly found ourselves before the chief working or lode; not a very imposing, but still an interesting, excavation.

It is a small tunnel driven into the hill-side. Its height is about eight or ten feet, and its width barely five; and at the entrance we found several heaps of the auriferous quartz.

Entering the tunnel, we observed that the superincumbent rock and earth were supported by props and joists of wood; and, after penetrating about twenty or thirty yards, we found ourselves with the miners, who were busily engaged with pickaxe and gunpowder, procuring the gold-charged mineral, which, by the light of their candles, glistens with the precious

metal it contains.

But it is a cold, damp burrow, this treasure-yielding vault! Through the grey rock the wet trickles as in some cave of stalactite, and under-foot we find a pool of water.

The miners had just finished procuring a load of the quartz, and were boring for a fresh blast. After watching them for a time, we retraced our steps, and once more emerged from the damp chill cavern into the genial sunshine, and feasted our eyes upon the glorious hills and valleys of the Mawddach.

Arrived once more at the "engine-house," a little wooden shed containing the apparatus used for grinding the quartz, we met the enterprising owner of the mine, who described to us the process and machinery by which the precious metal is extracted from the crude mineral.

We shall, however, refrain from employing the technical phraseology used by our instructor, but shall seek to convey the information after our own fashion.

Just let the reader join us whilst we indulge in a stretch of the imagination. He must suppose that our skilful companion, the proprietor of the mine, who knows so well how to conjure up the treasures from the bosom of these hills, is also able, through some potent spell, to summon the presiding Genius of the place (one of those Welsh giants, in whom the country people still believe, and whose footsteps they will show you, thirty feet apart *), and having done so, places before him a pestle and mortar, of proportions suited to his strength, and by his side a heap of auriferous quartz, with a quantity of quicksilver, bidding

*On the coach-road between Beddgelert and Carnarvon, the impress of one of the feet of a giant has been painted on the top of a rock on one side of the road, and that of the other foot on the opposite side, distant about thirty feet.

VOL. II.-NO, V.

D

him grind the ore, whilst an attendant sprite is pouring a continuous stream of water on the triturated mass.

This is really what Mr. Readwin has contrived to do.

His "Genius" is the lovely waterfall which excited our admiration, and which is formed by the stream as it flows past the engine-house.

Causing a portion of the water to diverge, he lets it flow along a wooden conduit that leads it to a little water-wheel, which is thus set in motion. This wheel turns a horizontal shaft or axle in the engine-shed, and, by means of two vertical cog-wheels attached to the shaft, and two other horizontal ones, into which these work, two smaller vertical shafts are set in motion, and to these are affixed the arms, which cause the grinders or pestles to revolve in the mortars containing the quartz. This is effected much after the manner in which a druggist's apprentice pounds drugs with a large pestle and mortar. The arms attached to the vertical shaft are of iron, and the reader may form an idea of their shape and mode of operation, if he turns the palm of his hands downwards, doubling his thumb and two last fingers underneath, protrudes his first and second fingers, and slightly separates them, lowering the points. These two fingers will then represent the "arms." Let him now suppose that his fingers can be made to revolve horizontally, and that they carry round with them a pestle, which is held between them, but allowed to roll freely against the sides of a mortar, in which it works, and he will thus imitate the grinding or pounding process here employed. (See Plate IV.) The pestle is shaped like a peg-top, with the pointed end downwards, and weighs about 2 cwt.; and the mortar is a vessel of cast iron, of proportionate size and strength; of a suitable form internally, and externally a hemisphere. The quartz is first broken as fine as the hammer can reduce it. It is then placed, along with mercury, in the mortar, and a little stream of water is allowed to trickle continually through a siphon upon the triturated mass. The gold contained in the quartz is taken up by the mercury as the trituration proceeds, and a lump of amalgam sinks to the bottom of the mortar, and is taken out through an opening closed by a plug. It is heated in an iron retort over a furnace, the mercury driven off, and the residue is pure gold, worth about £3 an ounce.

In some cases, the gold is visible in the quartz, and Mr. Readwin showed us a piece of the latter, so charged with it, that he valued it (the crude mineral) at £1,200 per ton; in others, it is scarcely to be detected with the aid of a pocketlens, being disseminated in fine granules throughout the matrix.

There are other processes by which the gold is extracted

Led at Garthgill by JS

W West Lith