This page has been validated.
18
ANGLESITE—ANGLI

ochre have been worked. Serpentine (Mona Marble) is found near Llanfaerynneubwll and upon the opposite shore in Holyhead. There are abundant evidences of glaciation, and much boulder clay and drift sand covers the older rocks. Patches of blown sand occur on the S.W. coast.

The London & North-Western railway (Chester and Holyhead branch) crosses Anglesey from Llanfairpwllgwyngyll to Gaerwen and Holyhead (Caer Gybi), also from Gaerwen to Amlwch. The staple of the island is farming, the chief crops being turnips, oats, potatoes, with flax in the centre. Copper (near Amlwch), lead, silver, marble, asbestos, lime and sandstone, marl, zinc and coal have all been worked in Anglesey, coal especially at Malldraeth and Trefdraeth. The population of the county in 1901 was 50,606. There is no parliamentary borough, but one member is returned for the county. It is in the north-western circuit, and assizes are held at Beaumaris, the only municipal borough (pop. 2326). Amlwch (2994), Holyhead (10,079), Llangefni (1751) and Menai Bridge (Pont y Borth, 1700) are urban districts. There are six hundreds and seventy-eight parishes.

Môn (a cow) is the Welsh name of Anglesey, itself a corrupted form of O.E., meaning the Isle of the Angles. Old Welsh names are Ynys Dywyll (“Dark Isle”) and Ynys y cedairn (cedyrn or kedyrn; “Isle of brave folk”). It is the Mona of Tacitus (Ann. xiv. 29, Agr. xiv. 18), Pliny the Elder (iv. 16) and Dio Cassius (62). It is called Mam Cymru by Giraldus Cambrensis. Clas Merddin, Y vel Ynys (honey isle), Ynys Prydein, Ynys Brut are other names. According to the Triads (67), Anglesey was once part of the mainland, as geology proves. The island was the seat of the Druids, of whom 28 cromlechs remain, on uplands overlooking the sea, e.g. at Plâs Newydd. The Druids were attacked in A.D. 61 by Suetonius Paulinus, and by Agricola in A.D. 78. In the 5th century Caswallon lived here, and here, at Aberffraw, the princes of Gwynedd lived till 1277. The present road from Holyhead to Llanfairpwllgwyngyll is originally Roman. British and Roman camps, coins and ornaments have been dug up and discussed, especially by the Hon. Mr Stanley of Penrhos. Pen Caer Gybi is Roman. The island was devastated by the Danes (Dub Gint or black nations, gentes), especially in A.D. 853.

See Edw. Breese, Kalendar of Gwynedd (Venedocia), on Anglesey, Carnarvon and Merioneth (London, 1873); and The History of Powys Fadog.

ANGLESITE, a mineral consisting of lead sulphate, PbSO4, crystallizing in the orthorhombic system, and isomorphous with barytes and celestite. It was first recognized as a mineral species by Dr Withering in 1783, who discovered it in the Parys copper-mine in Anglesey; the name anglesite, from this locality, was given by F. S. Beudant in 1832. The crystals from Anglesey, which were formerly found abundantly on a matrix of dull limonite, are small in size and simple in form, being usually bounded by four faces of a prism and four faces of a dome; they are brownish-yellow in colour owing to a stain of limonite. Crystals from some other localities, notably from Monteponi in Sardinia, are transparent and colourless, possessed of a brilliant adamantine lustre, and usually modified by numerous bright faces. The variety of combinations and habits presented by the crystals is very extensive, nearly two hundred distinct forms being figured by V. von Lang in his monograph of the species; without measurement of the angles the crystals are frequently difficult to decipher. The hardness is 3 and the specific gravity 6·3. There are distinct cleavages parallel to the faces of the prism {110} and the basal plane {001}, but these are not so well developed as in the isomorphous minerals barytes and celestite.

Anglesite is a mineral of secondary origin, having been formed by the oxidation of galena in the upper parts of mineral lodes where these have been affected by weathering processes. At Monteponi the crystals encrust cavities in glistening granular galena; and from Leadhills, in Scotland, pseudomorphs of anglesite after galena are known. At most localities it is found as isolated crystals in the lead-bearing lodes, but at some places, in Australia and Mexico, it occurs as large masses, and is then mined as an ore of lead, of which the pure mineral contains 68%.

ANGLI, Anglii or Angles, a Teutonic people mentioned by Tacitus in his Germania (cap. 40), at the end of the 1st century. He gives no precise indication of their geographical position, but states that, together with six other tribes, including the Varini (the Warni of later times), they worshipped a goddess named Nerthus, whose sanctuary was situated on “an island in the Ocean.” Ptolemy in his Geography (ii. 11. § 15), half a century later, locates them with more precision between the Rhine, or rather perhaps the Ems, and the Elbe, and speaks of them as one of the chief tribes of the interior. Unfortunately, however, it is clear from a comparison of his map with the evidence furnished by Tacitus and other Roman writers that the indications which he gives cannot be correct. Owing to the uncertainty of these passages there has been much speculation regarding the original home of the Angli. One theory, which however has little to recommend it, is that they dwelt in the basin of the Saale (in the neighbourhood of the canton Engilin), from which region the Lex Angliorum et Werinorum hoc est Thuringorum is believed by many to have come. At the present time the majority of scholars believe that the Angli had lived from the beginning on the coasts of the Baltic, probably in the southern part of the Jutish peninsula. The evidence for this view is derived partly from English and Danish traditions dealing with persons and events of the 4th century (see below), and partly from the fact that striking affinities to the cult of Nerthus as described by Tacitus are to be found in Scandinavian, especially Swedish and Danish, religion. Investigations in this subject have rendered it very probable that the island of Nerthus was Sjaelland (Zealand), and it is further to be observed that the kings of Wessex traced their ancestry ultimately to a certain Scyld, who is clearly to be identified with Skiöldr, the mythical founder of the Danish royal family (Skiöldungar). In English tradition this person is connected with “Scedeland” (pl.), a name which may have been applied to Sjaelland as well as Skåne, while in Scandinavian tradition he is specially associated with the ancient royal residence at Leire in Sjaelland.

Bede states that the Angli before they came to Britain dwelt in a land called Angulus, and similar evidence is given by the Historia Brittonum. King Alfred and the chronicler Æthelweard identified this place with the district which is now called Angel in the province of Schleswig (Slesvig), though it may then have been of greater extent, and this identification agrees very well with the indications given by Bede. Full confirmation is afforded by English and Danish traditions relating to two kings named Wermund (q.v.) and Offa (q.v.), from whom the Mercian royal family were descended, and whose exploits are connected with Angel, Schleswig and Rendsburg. Danish tradition has preserved record of two governors of Schleswig, father and son, in their service, Frowinus (Freawine) and Wigo (Wig), from whom the royal family of Wessex claimed descent. During the 5th century the Angli invaded this country (see Britain, Anglo-Saxon), after which time their name does not recur on the continent except in the title of the code mentioned above.

The province of Schleswig has proved exceptionally rich in prehistoric antiquities which date apparently from the 4th and 5th centuries. Among the places where these have been found, special mention should be made of the large cremation cemetery at Borgstedterfeld, between Rendsburg and Eckernförde, which has yielded many urns and brooches closely resembling those found in heathen graves in England. Of still greater importance are the great deposits at Thorsbjaerg (in Angel) and Nydam, which contained large quantities of arms, ornaments, articles of clothing, agricultural implements, &c., and in the latter case even ships. By the help of these discoveries we are able to reconstruct a fairly detailed picture of English civilization in the age preceding the invasion of Britain.

Authorities.—Bede, Hist. Ecc. i. 15: King Alfred’s version of Orosius, i. 1. §§ 12, 19; Æthelweard’s Chronicle, lib. i. For traditions concerning the kings of Angel, see under Offa (1). L. Weiland,