1712, by Marshal Villars over the allies commanded , Prince Eugene ; and the battle-field is marked by a mono lithic monument inscribed with the verses of Voltaire Regardez dans Denain I audacieux Villars Disputant le tonnerre a 1 aigle des Cesars.
DENBIGH, a maritime county of North Wales, is
about 40 miles in its extreme length from N.W to S.E.
by 36 at its greatest and 8 at its least width, where it
divided into two unequal portions. It embraces a super
ficial area of 392,005 statute acres, or 612^ square miles.
The population in 1871 amounted to 105,102 persons,
52,866 males and 52,236 females; in 1861 it numbered
100,778, and in 1851, 92,583. The county was formed
27 Hen. VIII., out of the lordships of Denbigh, Ruthiu,
Rhos, and Rhyfoniog, corresponding roughly with the dis
trict called Perfeddwlad (or the midland between the
Conway and the Chvyd), and the lordships of Bromfield,
Yale, and Chirkland, which at an earlier period had been
comprised in the possessions of Gruffydd ap Madoc, the
lord of Dinas Bran. It is bounded on the W. in its northern
division by the River Conway, from one of its ancient
mouths in Llandrillo Bay to its source in the Migneint
mountains, in the southern by the Berwyn chain, andon its
extreme E. by the line of the Dee, the Ceiriog, and a
portion of Offa s Dyke. The intervening surface is very
irregular, and its physical character highly diversified. The
N.W. portion is occupied by the bleak, bare table-land of
the Hiraethog hills, which slope on the west to the valley
of the Conway and on the east to the Vale of Clwyd, by
which they are divided from the Clvvydian range and the.
hills of Yale. On the N. it stretches along the bays of
Colwyn and Abergele, and on the S. it is separated from
Merionethshire by the Yspytty and Llangwm range. From
this watershed flow tributaries of the Clwyd, the Conway,
and the Dee viz., the Elwy, the Aled, the Clywedog, the
Merddwr, and the Alwen. The valleys along which some of
these streams flow are, from their fertility and natural beauty,
in striking contrast to their bleak surroundings. Among
these may be specified the beautiful gorge of the Elwy
and the broad fertile plaiu of the Vale of Clwyd. Of the
other division, which extends from near Farndon Bridge in
the N.E. to the Rhaiadr in Mochuant S.W., that portion
which lies between the Rhuabon hills and the Dee is
extremely rich in minerals as well as in agricultural
produce; the other portion, from the Berwyn to Offa s
Dyke, is comparatively wild and barren, save the pretty
valley of the Tanat, the cup-like plain of Llansilin, and the
lower reaches of the Ceiriog. One of the feeders of the
Tanat rolls down a waterfall named Pistyll Rhaidr, which
is 240 feet high ; and another rises in the little lake
of "Llyncaws," which nestles beneath Moel Sych, 2716
feet, the highest point in the Berwyn range, and indeed
in the county. There are also a few lakes in the Hiraethog
district, the largest of which Aled and Alwen give rise
to rivers of the same names.
Soil and Agriculture.—On the uplands the soil is too cold and poor, and the seasons too uncongenial, to admit of good com crops ; but a more profitable investment is made in the rearing of mountain ponies and of sheep and black cattle, which are sold in great numbers to be fattened in the Midland Counties of England, for the London market. Less than a third of the surface is under cultivation; and the agricultural acreage was thus dis tributed in the years 1873 and 1876 : Corn Crops. Green Crops. _... 1873 ............... 65,488 15,461 1876 ............... 61,416 14,334 . tinder rotation. 41 609 42,837 Of the corn crops, oats occupy much the largest amount of acreage, and of green crops, turnips. The live stock of the county in the same years was distributed thus: Cattle. 1873 58,122 1876 56,975 Sheep. 273,721 258,464 Pigs. 24,240 24,438 Horses. 11,395 11,789 In the valleys, and indeed far up the sunny slopes of the hills, the latest improvements in agriculture may be observed, and the reaping hook and the flail are fast disappearing before the reaping and the thrashing machines. This progress has been largely due to several Farmers Clubs, such as the Denbighshire and Flintshire, the Vale of Conway, and the Cerrigydrudion. But the railways have done still more. The Vale of Llanrwst, the Vale of Clwyd, and the Denbigh and Chester lines have- linked their respective districts to the great trunk line of the London and North Western ; whilst the Denbigh, Ruthin, and Corwen, the Corwen and Rhuabon, the Wrexham and Connah s Quay, and yet again the Rhos- llanerchrugog and the Glyn Ceiriog tramways, have done the same for the Great Western, thus opening all the main arteries of the county alike to external and internal com munication, and vastly developing its resources. Down the picturesque Vale of Llangollen also runs the great Holyhead Road in its day the principal means of com munication between London and Ireland, and for engineering skill, excellency of workmanship, and beauty of scenery probably still unsurpassed in the United King dom.
The geology of the county is full of interest, as it develops all the principal strata that intervene between the Lower Silurian and the Triassic series. In the Lower Silurian district, which extends from the southern boundary to the Ceiriog, the Llandeilo formation of the eastern lopes of the Berwyn and the Bala beds of shelly sandstone are traversed east and west by bands of intrusive felspathic porphyry and ashes ; northwards from the Ceiriog to the .imestone fringe at Llandrillo, the Wenlock shale of the Upper Silurian covers the entire mass of the Hiraethog and Iwydian hills, but verging on its western slopes into the Denbighshire grit, which may bo traced southward in a ontiuuous line from the mouth of the Conway as far a Llanddewi Ystrad Enni in Radnorshire. On its eastern slope a narrow broken band of the Old Red crops up along
- he Vale of Clwyd and in Eglwyseg. Resting upon this
the Carboniferous Limestone extends from Llanymynach, its extreme southern point, to the Cyrnybrain fault, and there orks into two divisions that terminate respectively in the ^freat Orme s Head and in Talargoch, and are separated rom each other by the denuded shales of the Moel Famma ange. In the Vale of Clwyd the limestone underlies the STew Red Sandstone, and in the eastern division it is itself verlaid by the millstone grit of Rhuabon and Minera, ind by a long reach of the coal measures which near Wrexham are 4^ miles in breadth. Eastward of these a road strip of the Permian succeeds, and yet again between his and the Dee the ground is occupied as in the Vale )f Clwyd by the New Red.
The mineral resources of the county under these condi- ions are naturally considerable. Paving flags are raised it Nantglyn ; slates and slabs for ornamental purposes, on i large scale, on Rhiwfelen, near Llangollen ; and slates at jrlyn Ceiriog. The limestone is used largely, and exported
- xtensively for building, fluxing, and agricultural purposes ;
,nd at Brymbo there is a fine layer of China stone. The andstones of Cefn Rhuabon are wrought into grindstones, ,nd the grit is used for millstones. The coal measures at ?hirk, Rhuabon, and Brymbo are very productive, the num- >er of collieries in 1875 being 61, and the quantity raised innually estimated at 1,379,560 tons. In close contiguity to
he coal seams, ironstone is found ; and the six furnaces in
