their relative strength. When the stranger arrived, I Foulke was mowing hay in the field, near to his house. : The stranger went up to him, and inquired, if he knew one Foulke, not supposing from his size andap pearance this could be the person he sought. Foulke answered, that his master was in the house, or not far distant, at the same time begged to know what his business was? I have heard, the stranger replied, that he is accounted the strongest man in the Princi pality, and am come to try our strength together. If that be all, Foulke observed, I can soon inform you, whether it will be worth your while to see my master, for I am a tolerably strong man myself, but nothing in his hands; as I have often experienced to my cost, when I have had the temerity to contend with him; therefore I would have you try, what you can do with me first. They immediately engaged, when Foulke, by his superior strength, flung his antagonist over a high wall into the road. Fully satisfied, he exclaimed, if this be the man, what must the master be! and mounting his horse rode home, fully convinced of his superiority.

Another anecdote is told, that evinced his peaceable disposition, as well as his uncommon strength. A troublesome fellow at Caernarvon, wished to irritate Foulke to fight; who begged he would cease, as he had no desire to quarrel, far less to fight with any man. At length he grew so impertinent and grossly insulting, that he struck Foulke in the face; his ire thus justly roused, he took him by the neck, and lifted him over the battlements of the bridge on which

they stood, suspending him over the water, crying most loudly for mercy. Having held him in this un-. pleasant situation for some time, he lifted him back again, and dismissed him with an ignominious kick on the seat of honour.

Many are the feats of strength he performed; such as taking a cow upon his back, and bearing it home; carrying a tree he had felled, which seven other men were unable to perform, &c. &c.

From every account he seems to have been a more extraordinary person than Margaret Evans; but while she has been noticed by several writers, Foulke has only been celebrated in the tradition of his neighbourhood. He died about seven years ago, at the age of seventy-five. The inhabitants of this country are remarkable for longevity. The registers contain many ages of a hundred years and upwards; and it is common to find persons alive at a period little short of it.*

At a small distance from the village, on the western

* This may arise, not only from the sharpness and salubrity of the air, but also from the regular mode of living, and the undebilitating food on which necessity obliges these mountaineers to exist.

"The mountayne men live longer many a yeere,
"Than those in vale, in playne or moorish soyle;
A lustie hart, a clean complexion cleere,

"They have on hill, that for hard living toyle.

"With ewe and lambe, with goates and kids they play ;

In greatest toyles to rub out wearie day;

"And when to house and home good fellows drawe,”
"The lads can laugh, at turning of a strawe."

CHURCHYARD,

side of the lake, are mines of copper, the property of Ashéton Smith, Esq. of Vae nol; and by him are leasedto Messrs. Roe, Hudson, Smith, and Mills, under the: firm of the Macclesfield Company; who are also concerned in the Cronebane copper works in Ireland.

There are seven levels driven into Snowdon. The rock consists of hard whin, and schistose hornblende.. The ore is chiefly formed in a matrix of quartz. It is a rich yellow ore, containing copper in union with iron and sulphur. The copper Pyrites, or first family of Kirwan Min. Vol. II.

Though there are seven levels, two only are worked. The one called the new level is a hundred and eighty yards in length. The shafts are numerous, as they are the communications from the one level to the other. A person therefore may enter at the first level, and by the different shafts pass through the intermediate opes, and emerge into day-light again at the seventh level.

The mode of draining the work does not reflect great credit upon the spirit, or ingenuity of the undertaking. A shaft is sunk, about forty-five yards below the depth of the new level. Into this the superfluous water runs from the work;

and as it collects, is raised into the level by means of a winch and barrels; and hence it is carried down into the lake. These mines were discovered about fifty years ago, by John Jones Roberts, who, by a simple process, obtained ore enough in six months, to sell for 3001. After this they lay neglected, till they were taken up by the Company, who at present work them.

The number of Miners are about eighty, who work by the square yard in blasting the rock; their carnings consequently are very uncertain, depending upon the nature of the matrix that contains the ore. They work by candle-light, clad only in a shirt and small clothes; and they observe, that it is warmer under ground in Winter than in Summer: which corroborates the doctrine of the mean temperature of the earth being about forty-eight degrees. This compared with the height at which the thermometer stands in Winter and Summer, in the open air, will account for this paradoxical sensation, without having recourse to subterraneous fires. The ore contains a quantity of sand, or superfluous earth, from which it is cleared by means of breaking, stamping, decanting, &c.

.

Women and children are employed with hammers, to break the large pieces of ore, and then to wash and sort it into three different kinds of diverse qua lities; some containing one-tenth, and some onefifth copper. It is then taken to the stamping mill, where it undergoes the further process of pulverisation. The stamping mill is formed of six large oaken beams, shod at the end with steel, placed vertically over a large trough: by means of a crook, these are alternately raised by the power of a water wheel, and let fall upon the ore contained in the trough. When pounded sufficiently small, it is carried into a reservoir by a stream of water, where it is again purified by decantation, &c. It is then removed in boats down the lakes, whence it is conveyed by carts

to Caernarvon Quay, and shipped for the Company's smelting works near Swansea.

SNOWDON.

We were now in the midst of Snowdonia, a range of mountains extending from Conway to the sea at Aberdaron, in a direction nearly from North-east to North-west; and unlike other mountains, they are one pile upon another, consisting of groups of cliffs rising above cliffs, as they gradually ascend from each extremity to the center.

Snowdon, the common escarpement, or declivity, fronts the Menai; and ranges in a parallel line with it. The escarpement of particular mountains generally depends upon the inclination of the strata. The principal are Carnedd David, Carnedd Llewelyn, Trevaen, Moel Siabod, the two Glyders, the two Llyders, Moel Llyfni, and Moel Mynydd Nant; all emulous to support their superior and Father Snowdon: yet his proud Peaks of Crib ydistil, and y Wydd Fa, appear scarcely to outrival some of the summits that surround them.

The height of mountains, as they affect the eye, must be considered from the spot where the ascent begins to make a considerable angle with the plain. But, philosophically considered, they are computed from the surface of the ocean. Mr. Caswell, who was employed by Flamstead to measure it in 1682, with instruments adjusted by that able philosopher, made the height of the highest point, 1240 yards (3720 feet) above the level of Caernarvon Quay. But later, and pro