The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

72
THE BEITISH ISLES.
Wales contains a valuable natural-history collection. Landore, a suburb of Swan-
sea, is well known for its steel works.
Oystermouth, on the western side of Swansea Bay, has grown into a favourite
watering-place. The Neath enters Swansea Bay to the east of Swansea. Briton
Ferry, at its mouth, has iron and tin-plate works, but is surpassed in importance
by Neath, a few miles up the river, where copper smelting is carried on, and
whence coal is exported in considerable quantities. Abtrafon, at the mouth of the
Avon, has copper works, and carries on a large trade. The small port of Forth
caul depends for its prosperity upon the coal mines of Cicmdu, in the interior of the
coimty. Still proceeding up the Bristol Channel to its narrowest part, where the
estuary of the Severn may be said to begin, we find ourselves opposite the port of
Cardiff, one of the most important in Europe. Though commanded by an old
castle, in which Robert, the eldest son of the Conqueror, lingered a captive for
thirty years, and which has been restored as a residence of the Marquis of Bute,
Cardiff is essentially a modern town, with broad, clean streets. The exports of
coal and iron from the Taff valley are the great source of its prosperity, and since
the opening of the famous Bute Docks its growth has been rapid. Roath, Canton,
and Fenarth are suburbs of Cardiff, and Llandaff, the seat of a bishopric founded in
the fifth century, lies 2 miles to the north-west of it. Its cathedral has recently
been restored. Coicbridgc and Bridgend are the principal towns in the Vale of
Glamorgan, which extends from Llandaff to Swansea Bay.
The towns in the basin of the TafF depend upon their collieries and iron works
for their prosperity, and like Cardiff, their principal shipping port, they suffered
much during the depression of trade. Mert/iyr Tydvil, high up in this
valley, and close to the borders of Brecknockshire, is the chief amongst them,
though it consists of an agglomeration of factories and dwelling-houses rather
than of a compactly built town. Its mines yield coal and excellent iron ore,
and as lime, which plays so important a part in the manufacture of iron, is found
close to the coal, the conditions are as favourable as possible for the development
of the iron and steel industry. The whole of this district is dotted over with iron
and steel works, railways intersect each other in all directions, and the lurid glare
of smoking heaps of slag lights up the night. The iron works of Dowlais, a suburb
of Merthyr Tydvil, give occasionally employment to 20,000 men, and rank with the
largest works of the kind in existence. Cyfarthfa, another of these workmen's cities,
formerly enjoyed the monopoly of casting all the guns required by the British
Government. It was here that Trevethick constructed his first traction engine.
Aberdare and Mountain Ash, on the Cynon, a tributary of the Taff ; Newbridge
(Pontypridd), at the mouth of the Rhondda valley ;
and other towns along the canal
which connects Merthyr Tydvil with Cardiff, are dependent upon their collieries
and iron works for existence. They possess hardly a feature to mitigate their
rough and grimy aspect, and it is a relief to turn from them to the fine ruins
of the feudal stronghold of Caerphilly, 8 miles to the north of Cardifi", in the
valley of the Rumney.
Monmouthshire extends from the Rumney to the Lower Wye, its centriil
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