AMLWCH,
or the Winding Loch, is a dirty-looking straggling town, founded on rocks. It owes its support chiefly to the copper works in its vicinity. The church is a neat modern structure, dedicated to Elaeth, a British saint: the port, which is but small, is, notwithstanding, excellently adapted for the trade which is carried on; it is narrow, capable of only containing two vessels abreast, of about 200 tons burthen each, and of these it will furnish room for about thirty; the entrance is by a chasm between two rocks.
The Parys mountain, like the works at Merthyr, shews what the industry of man is capable of accomplishing in removing rocks, mountains, and dragging forth the bowels of the earth. To those who possess good nerves, the view of this scene of wealth and industry will afford gratification unalloyed; but to those not so blessed, the horrific situations in which the principal actors of the scene are placed, poised in air, exposed to the blasting of the rocks, and the falling of materials, which themselves are sending aloft, or from those which may be misdirected, as ascending from the workings of others, by striking against projecting crags, seem to threaten death in so many varied shapes, that the wonder and admiration excited by the place are lost in pity and anxiety for the hardy miners.
From the top of the mountain, the dreadful yawning chasm, with the numerous stages erected over the edge of the precipice, appal rather than gratify the observer. To see the mine to advantage, you must descend to the bottom, and be provided with a guide, to enable you to shun the danger, that would be considerable, from the blasts and falling materials; the workmen generally not being able to see those that their operations may endanger.
The Mona mine is the entire property of the Marquis of Anglesea. The Parys mine is shared.
The mountain has been worked with varied success for about sixty-five years: it is now believed to be under the average; but whether that arises from the low price of the article, or the mine being exhausted, I am unable to say: for a considerable period, it produced 20,000 tons annually. One bed of ore was upwards of sixty feet in thickness. In the blasting the rock, to procure the ore, from six to eight tons of gunpowder are yearly consumed.
“This celebrated mountain,” says Mr. Evans, “is easily distinguished from the rest; for it is perfectly barren from the summit to the plain below: not a single shrub, and hardly a blade of grass, being able to live in its sulphurous atmosphere.
“No grassy mantle hides the sable hills,
No flowery chaplet crowns the trickling rills;
Nor tufted moss, nor leathery lichen creeps
In russet tapestry, o’er the crumbling steeps.”Darwin.
From hence we proceeded to