that the mountain which yields the slate is
Y Bron.

The mountain is on the west side of the
little river Ogwen; and the quarrymen's
cottages and villages are scattered about near
it; but the most remarkable place in the
vicinity, for its human and social interest, is
Bethesda — a town whose very name shows
that it owed its origin to a body of persons
among whom religious feeling is strong. Bethesda
is a quarrymen's town, a slate community.
Dissenters are in full force all over the
Principality, and nowhere more so than at
the quarries. We happened to be at Bangor
on the day when the Welsh Calvinistic
Methodists held their annual field-meeting in
that down in that town, and shall not soon
forget the sight; so neat, so clean, so earnest,
so simple-minded, so honest-hearted did they
all appear. They came from the quarries, from
Conway, from Carnarvon, from Beaumaris,
from every place within many miles around
Bangor; they sang their unpronounceable
Welsh with good healthy lungs; and sat on
chairs, or carts, or waggons, or reclined on
the grass under a bright blue sky and a
cheerful sun, to listen to discourses. Such
was a great day for the quarrymen; but for
all ordinary occasions they have their own
chapels in their own Bethesda. And they
have their retail shops, too, where David
ap Jones ap Price ap Davies ap Morgan ap
Shenkin, and his brother tradesmen, sell
bread, cloth, pins, herrings, lucifers, candles,
penny pictures, saucepans, leeks, lollipops, and
all the other necessaries and luxuries for a
working population.

While passing through Bethesda, on our
way from the quarries to Bangor, we for a
time catch a glimpse of the railway or tram
along which the slates are conveyed to
the shipping quay. This tramway was
perhaps the making of the quarries, as a
commercial speculation. Lord Penrhyn is said
to have spent nearly two hundred thousand
pounds on the means of transport to the
ships; and a most wise expenditure of capital
it was. The railway glides between Bangor
town and Penrhyn Park, carrying its long
train of little trucks down to the docks and
quays at the northern end of the Menai Straits.
These quays are excellently arranged; nothing
can better aid the slates in setting off on their
travels all over the world. The ships draw
up close to the quays; the railway runs along
the quays; and the transfer from the trucks
to the ships is made easily and rapidly. The
quays, running a thousand feet out into the
sea, are laden with slates in countless number;
slates in blocks, and slates in slabs, and slates
in slices; slates little and slates big; slates
for builders and slates for schoolboys; slates
for home and slates for abroad. As to the
extent and value of these quarries and
shipments, we are afraid to say how great are the
estimates sometimes made. We have been
told of three thousand men and boys employed
at the works — of eleven thousand persons
supported by the wages thus received — of
eighty thousand pounds a year expended in
working the quarries, and yearly profits much
larger than this ; but unless we could tell
more accurately, it will be better to keep
clear of such big, high-sounding numbers as
these.

There is, we believe, a little example of
quarry visiting made easy — not at Bangor —
but at another slate quarry in North Wales.
At Tan-y-Bwlch (oh these names!) near
Ffestiniog, there is the lovely park of Mrs.
Oakley and a tourists' hotel; and we have
heard of a sort of tourists' truck placed upon
the tramway for the use of the hotel visitors;
but of this we cannot speak from personal
knowledge. Instead, however, of describing
my second quarry, let us rather notice a few
facts in the subsequent history of the slates.

Practical application treads so closely
on the heels of science in these our busy
days, that no sooner does the thinking man
discover something new, than the commercial
man tries to convert this something into
silver and gold. Unluckily the thinking man
does not always obtain his share of these
precious rewards. So far as regards slate, we
can hardly assert that any very decided or
novel discovery has been lately made in the
geological position or relation or quantity of
available slate; but there certainly have been
many notable improvements in the mode of
obtainment. The improved management of the
blast; the skilful arrangement of the terraces
in the quarry; the construction of a well-
graduated railway from the quarry to the shipping
port; the quick transit from place to place
by the construction of go-ahead vessels; the
application of steam power to the mechanical
sawing and planing, and turning, and
grinding and polishing of slate; the ingenious
process of enamelling — all act as so many
impulses, tending to an increase in the use of
this material. No one with eyes open can
fail to see indications of this increase. Here
and there and everywhere we now meet with
slate pavements, slate terraces, slate walls,
slate cisterns and tanks, besides the ordinary
application for roofing. But there are also
new modes of employing slate for steps,
balconies, larders, wine-cellars, dairies, skirtings
of rooms, linings for damp walls, wine-
coolers, bread-troughs, pickling-troughs, pig-
feeding-troughs, grave-stones, tombs and
monuments, clock-faces, sun-dials, sinks,
filters — even strong rooms and powder
magazines, if the slabs be unusually thick. It is a
circumstance of immense value, in respect to
many of these applications of slate, that slabs
can be obtained so large as fifteen feet long
by eight in width, and as flat as a billiard-
table; nay, the very billiard-table which we
here bring into comparison owes its own
flatness to the true level produced by the
laminated structure of slate. How many million
of feet pressed upon the south transept