Upon the return of new dangers, or at least of fears, Abelard left the Paraclete to make trial of another refuge, accepting an invitation to preside over the Abbey of St Gildas-de-Rhuys, on the far-off shore of Lower Brittany. It proved a wretched exchange. The region was inhospitable, the domain a prey to lawless exaction, the house itself savage and disorderly. Yet for nearly ten years he continued to struggle with fate before he fled from his charge, yielding in the end only under peril of violent death. The misery of those years was not, however, unrelieved; for he had been able, on the breaking-up of Heloise's convent at Argenteuil, to establish her as head of a new religious house at the deserted Paraclete, and in the capacity of spiritual director he often was called to revisit the spot thus made doubly dear to him. All this time Heloise had lived amid universal esteem for her knowledge and character, uttering no word under the doom that had fallen upon her youth; but now, at last, the occasion came for expressing all the pent-up emotions of her soul. Living on for some time in Brittany after his flight from St Gildas, Abelard wrote, among other things, his famous Historia Calamitatum, and thus moved her to pen her first Letter, which remains an unsurpassed utterance of human passion and womanly devotion; the first being followed by the two other Letters, in which she finally accepted the part of resignation which, now as a brother to a sister, Abelard commended to her. He not long after was seen once more upon the field of his early triumphs, lecturing on Mount St Geneviève in 1136 (when he was heard by John of Salisbury), but it was only for a brief space: no new triumph, but a last great trial, awaited him in the few years to come of his chequered life. As far back as the Paraclete days, he had counted as chief among his foes Bernard of Clairvaux, in whom was incarnated the principle of fervent and unhesitating faith, from which rational inquiry like his was sheer revolt, and now this uncompromising spirit was moving, at the instance of others, to crush the growing evil in the person of the boldest offender. After preliminary negotiations, in which Bernard was roused by Abelard's steadfastness to put forth all his strength, a council met at Sens, before which Abelard, formally arraigned upon a number of heretical charges, was prepared to plead his cause. When, however, Bernard, not without foregone terror in the prospect of meeting the redoubtable dialectician, had opened the case, suddenly Abelard appealed to Rome. The stroke availed him nothing; for Bernard, who had power, notwithstanding, to get a condemnation passed at the council, did not rest a moment till a second condemnation was procured at Rome in the following year. Meanwhile, on his way thither to urge his plea in person, Abelard had broken down at the Abbey of Cluni, and there, an utterly fallen man, with spirit of the humblest, and only not bereft of his intellectual force, he lingered but a few months before the approach of death. Removed by friendly hands, for the relief of his sufferings, to the Priory of St Marcel, he died on the 21st of April 1142. First buried at St Marcel, his remains soon after were carried off in secrecy to the Paraclete, and given over to the loving care of Heloise, who in time came herself to rest beside them. The bones of the pair were shifted more than once afterwards, but they were marvellously preserved even through the vicissitudes of the French Revolution, and now they lie united in the well-known tomb at Père-Lachaise.

Great as was the influence exerted by Abelard on the minds of his contemporaries and the course of medieval thought, he has been little known in modern times but for his, connection with Heloise. Indeed, it was not till the present century, when Cousin in 1836 issued the collection entitled Ouvrages inédits d'Abélard, that his

philosophical performance could be judged at first hand: of his strictly philosophical works only one, the ethical treatise Scito te ipsum, having been published earlier, namely, in 1721. Cousin's collection, besides giving extracts from the theological work Sic et Non (an assemblage of opposite opinions on doctrinal points, culled from the Fathers as a basis for discussion), includes the Dialectica, commentaries on logical works of Aristotle, Porphyry, and Boëthius, and a fragment, De Generibus et Speciebus. The last-named work, and also the psychological treatise De Intellectibus, published apart by Cousin (in Fragmens Philosophiques, vol. ii.), are now considered upon internal evidence not to be by Abelard himself, but only to have sprung out of his school. A genuine work, the Glossula super Porphyrium, from which M. de Rémusat, in his classical monograph Abélard (1845), has given extracts, remains in manuscript.

The general importance of Abelard lies in his having fixed more decisively than any one before him the scholastic manner of philosophising, with its object of giving a formally rational expression to the received ecclesiastical doctrine. However his own particular interpretations may have been condemned, they were conceived in essentially the same spirit as the general scheme of thought afterwards elaborated in the 13th century with approval from the heads of the church. Through him was prepared in the Middle Age the ascendency of the philosophical authority of Aristotle, which became firmly established in the half-century after his death, when first the completed Organon, and gradually all the other works of the Greek thinker, came to be known in the schools: before his time it was rather upon the authority of Plato that the prevailing Realism sought to lean. As regards the central question of Universals, without having sufficient knowledge of Aristotle's views, Abelard yet, in taking middle ground between the extravagant Realism of his master, William of Champeaux, or of St Anselm, and the not less extravagant Nominalism (as we have it reported) of his other master, Roscellin, touched at more than one point the Aristotelian position. Along with Aristotle, also with Nominalists generally, he ascribed full reality only to the particular concretes; while, in opposition to the "insana sententia" of Roscellin, he declared the Universal to be no mere word (vox), but to consist, or (perhaps we may say) emerge, in the fact of predication (sermo). Lying in the middle between Realism and (extreme) Nominalism, this doctrine has often been spoken of as Conceptualism, but ignorantly so. Abelard, preeminently a logician, did not concern himself with the psychological question which the Conceptualist aims at deciding as to the mental subsistence of the Universal. Outside of his dialectic, it was in ethics that Abelard showed greatest activity of philosophical thought; laying very particular stress upon the subjective intention as determining, if not the moral character, at least the moral value, of human action. His thought in this direction, wherein he anticipated something of modern speculation, is the more remarkable because his scholastic successors accomplished least in the field of morals, hardly venturing to bring the principles and rules of conduct under pure philosophical discussion, even after the great ethical inquries of Aristotle became fully known to them. (G. C. R.)

ABENCERRAGES, a family or faction that is said to have held a prominent position in the Moorish kingdom of Granada in the 15th century. The name appears to have been derived from the Yussuf ben-Serragh, the head of the tribe in the time of Mahommed VII., who did that sovereign good service in his struggles to retain the crown of which he was three times deprived. Nothing is known of the family with certainty; but the name is

familiar from the interesting romance of Gines Perez de Hita, Guerras civiles de Granada, which celebrates the feuds of the Abencerrages and the rival family of the Zegris, and the cruel treatment to which the former were subjected. Florian's Gonsalvo of Cordova, and Chateaubriand's Last of the Abencerrages, are imitations of Perez de Hita's work. The hall of the Abencerrages in the Alhambra takes its name from being the reputed scene of the massacre of the family.

ABENEZRA, or IBN EZRA, is the name ordinarily given to ABRAHAM BEN MEIR BEN EZRA (called also Abenare or Evenare), one of the most eminent of the Jewish literati of the Middle Ages. He was born at Toledo about 1090; left Spain for Rome about 1140; resided afterwards at Mantua (1145), at Lucca (1154), at Rhodes (1155 and 1166), and in England (1159); and died probably in 1168. He was distinguished as a philosopher, astronomer, physician, and poet, but especially as a grammarian and commentator. The works by which he is best known form a series of Commentaries on the books of the Old Testament, which have nearly all been printed in the great Rabbinic Bibles of Bomberg (1525-6), Buxtorf (1618-9), and Frankfurter (1724-7). Abenezra's commentaries are acknowledged to be of very great value; he was the first who raised biblical exegesis to the rank of a science, interpreting the text according to its literal sense, and illustrating it from cognate languages. His style is elegant, but is so concise as to be sometimes obscure; and he occasionally indulges in epigram. In addition to the commentaries, he wrote several treatises on astronomy or astrology, and a number of grammatical works.

ABENSBERG, a small town of Bavaria, 18 miles S.W. of Regensburg, containing 1300 inhabitants. Here Napoleon gained an important victory over the Austrians on the 20th of April 1809. The town is the Abusina of the Romans, and ancient ruins exist in its neighbourhood.

ABERAVON, a parliamentary and municipal borough of Wales, in the county of Glamorgan, beautifully situated on the Avon, near its mouth, 8 miles east of Swansea. The town and adjacent villages have increased rapidly in recent years, from the extension of the mines of coal and iron in the vicinity, and the establishment of extensive works for the smelting of tin, copper, and zinc. The harbour, Port Talbot, has been much improved, and has good docks; and there is regular steam communication with Bristol. Ores for the smelting furnaces are imported from Cornwall, and copper, tin, and coal are exported. Aberavon unites with Swansea, Kenfigg, Loughor, and Neath, in returning a member to Parliament. In 1871 the population of the parish was 3396, of the parliamentary borough, 11,906.

ABERCONWAY. See CONWAY.

ABERCROMBIE, JOHN, an eminent physician of Edinburgh, was the son of the Rev. George Abercrombie of Aberdeen, in which city he was born in 1781. After attending the Grammar School and Marischal College, Aberdeen, he commenced his medical studies at Edinburgh in 1800, and obtained his degree of M.D. there in 1803. Soon afterwards he went to London, and for about a year gave diligent attention to the medical practice and lectures in St George's Hospital. In 1804 he returned to Edinburgh, became a Fellow of the College of Surgeons, and commenced as general practitioner in that city; where, in dispensary and private practice, he laid the foundation of that character for sagacity as an observer of disease, and judgment in its treatment, that eventually elevated him to the head of his profession. In 1823, be became a Licentiate of the College of Physicians; in 1824, a Fellow of that body; and from the death of Dr Gregory in 1822, he was considered the first physician in Scotland. Aber

crombie early began the laudable practice of preserving accurate notes of the cases that fell under his care; and at a period when pathological anatomy was far too little regarded by practitioners in this country, he had the merit of sedulously pursuing it, and collecting a mass of most important information regarding the changes produced by disease on different organs; so that, before the year 1824, he had more extended experience, and more correct views in this interesting field, than most of his contemporaries engaged in extensive practice. From 1816 he occasionally enriched the pages of the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal with essays, that display originality and industry, particularly those " on the diseases of the spinal cord and brain," and " on diseases of the intestinal canal, of the pancreas, and spleen." The first of these formed the basis of his great and very original work, Pathological and Practical Researches on Diseases of the Brain and Spinal Cord, which appeared at Edinburgh in 1828. In the same year he published also another very valuable work, his Researches on the Diseases of the Intestinal Canal, Liver, and other Viscera of the Abdomen. Though his professional practice was very extensive and lucrative, he found time for other speculations and occupations. In 1830 he published his Inquiries concerning the Intellectual Powers of Man and the Investigation of Truth, a work which, though less original and profound than his medical speculations, contains a popular view of an interesting subject, expressed in simple language. It was followed in 1833 by a sequel, The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings, the object of which, as stated in the preface, was "to divest the subject of all improbable speculations," and to show "the important relation which subsists between the science of mind and the doctrines of revealed religion." Both works have been very extensively read, reaching the 18th and 14th editions respectively in 1869. Soon after the publication of Moral Feelings, the University of Oxford conferred on the author the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine, and in 1835 he was elected Lord Rector of Marischal College, Aberdeen. Dr Abercrombie was much beloved by his numerous friends for the suavity and kindness of his manners, and was universally esteemed for his benevolence and unaffected piety. He died on the 14th of November 1844 of a very uncommon disease, the bursting (from softening of the muscular substance) of the coronary vessels of the heart.

ABERCROMBY, DAVID, M.D. This Scottish physician was sufficiently noteworthy half a century after his (probable) decease to have his Nova Medicina Praxis reprinted at Paris in 1740; while during his lifetime his Tuta ac efficax luis venereæ sæpe absque mercurio ac semper absque salivatione mercuriali curando methodus (1684, 8vo) was translated into German and published at Dresden in 1702 (8vo). In 1685 were published De Pulsus Variatione (London; Paris, 1688, 12mo), and Ars explorandi medicas facultates plantarum ex solo sap. (London). His Opuscula were collected in 1687. These professional writings gave him a place and memorial in Haller's Biblio theca Medicine Pract. (4 vols. 8vo, 1779, tom. iii. p. 619); but he claims passing remembrance rather as a metaphysician by his remarkable controversial books in theology and philosophy. Formerly a Roman Catholic and Jesuit, he abjured Popery, and published Protestancy proved Safer than Popery (London, 1686). But by far the most noticeable of his productions is A Discourse of Wit (London, 1685). This treatise somehow has fallen out of sight-much as old coined gold gets hidden away -so that bibliographers do not seem to have met with it, and assign it at hap-hazard to Patrick Abercromby, M.D. Notwithstanding, the most cursory examination of it proves that in this Discourse of Wit are contained

some of the most characteristic and most definitely-put | metaphysical opinions of the Scottish philosophy of common sense. Of this early metaphysician nothing biographically has come down save that he was a Scotchman ("Scotus")-born at Seaton. He was living early in the 18th century. (Haller, as supra; Lawrence Charteris's M.S., s. v.) So recently as 1833 was printed A Short Account of Scots Divines by him, edited by James Maidment, Edinburgh. (A. B. G.) ABERCROMBY, JAMES, LORD DUNFERMLINE, third son of the celebrated Sir Ralph Abercromby, was born on the 7th Nov. 1776. Educated for the profession of the law, he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1801, but he was prevented from engaging to any considerable extent in general practice by accepting appointments, first as commissioner in bankruptcy, and subsequently, as steward of the estates of the Duke of Devonshire. He commenced his political career in 1807, when he was elected member of Parliament for the borough of Midhurst. His sympathies with the small and struggling Opposition had already been declared, and he at once attached himself to the Whig party, with which he consistently acted throughout life. In 1812 he was returned for Calne, which he continued to represent until his elevation to the Scotch bench in 1830. During this lengthened period he rendered conspicuous and valuable services to his party and the country. In Scotch affairs he took, as was natural, a deep interest; and, by introducing, on two separate occasions, a motion for the redress of a special glaring abuse, he undoubtedly gave a strong impulse to the growing desire for a general reform. In 1824, and again in 1826, he presented a petition from the inhabitants of Edinburgh, and followed it up by a motion "for leave to bring in a Bill for the more effectual representation of the city of Edinburgh in the Commons House of Parliament." The motion was twice rejected, but by such narrow majorities as showed that the monopoly of the self-elected Council of thirty-three was doomed. In 1827, on the accession of the Whigs to power under Mr Canning, Abercromby received the appointment of JudgeAdvocate-General and Privy Counsellor. In 1830 he was raised to the judicial bench as Chief Baron of the Exchequer in Scotland. The office was abolished in 1832; and almost contemporaneously, Edinburgh, newly enfranchised, was called to return two members to the first reformed Parliament. As the election marked the commencement of a new political era, the honour to be conferred possessed a peculiar value, and the choice of the citizens fell most appropriately on Francis Jeffrey and James Abercromby, two of the foremost of those to whom they were indebted for their hard-won privileges. In 1834 Mr Abercromby obtained a seat in the cabinet of Lord Grey as Master of the Mint. On the assembling of the new Parliament in 1835, the election of a speaker gave occasion for the first trial of strength between the Reform party and the followers of Sir Robert Peel. After a memorable division, in which more members voted than had ever before been known, Abercromby was elected by 316 votes, to 310 recorded for Manners-Sutton. The choice was amply justified, not only by the urbanity, impartiality, and firmness with which Abercromby discharged the public duties of the chair, but also by the important reforms he introduced in regard to the conduct of private business. In 1839 he resigned the office, and received the customary honour of a peerage, with the title of Lord Dunfermline. The evening of his life was passed in retirement at Colinton, near Edinburgh, where he died on the 17th April 1858. The courage and sagacity which marked his entire conduct as a Liberal were never more conspicuous than when, towards the close of his life, he availed himself of an opportunity of practically asserting his cherished doctrine of absolute religious equality. The

important part he took in originating and supporting the United Industrial School in Edinburgh for ragged children, irrespective of their religious belief, deserves to be gratefully acknowledged and remembered, even by those who took the opposite side in the controversy which arose with regard to it.

ABERCROMBY, PATRICK, M.D., was the third son of Alexander Abercromby of Fetterneir in Aberdeenshire, and brother of Francis Abercromby, who was created by James II. Lord Glasford. He was born at Forfar in 1656. As throughout Scotland, he could have had there the benefits of a good parish school; but it would seem from after events that his family was Roman Catholic, and hence, in all probability, his education was private. This, and not the unproved charge of perversion from Protestantism in subserviency to James II., explains his Roman Catholicism and adhesion to the fortunes of that king. But, intending to become a doctor of medicine, he entered the University of St Andrews, where he took his degree of M.D. in 1685. From a statement in one of his preface-epistles to his magnum opus, the Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation, he must have spent most of his youthful years abroad. It has been stated that he attended the University of Paris. The Discourse of Wit (1685), assigned to him, belongs to Dr David Abercromby, a contemporary. On his return to Scotland, he is found practising as a physician in Edinburgh, where, besides his professional duties, he gave himself with characteristic zeal to the study of antiquities, a study to which he owes it that his name still lives, for he finds no place in either Haller or Hutchison's Medical Biographies. He was out-and-out a Scot of the old patriotic type, and, living as he did during the agitations for the union of England and Scotland, he took part in the war of pamphlets inaugurated and sustained by prominent men on both sides of the Border. He crossed swords with no less redoubtable a foe than Daniel Defoe in his Advantages of the Act of Security, compared with those of the intended Union (Edinburgh, 1707), and A Vindication of the Same against Mr De Foe (ibid.) The logic and reason were with Defoe, but there was a sentiment in the advocates of independence which was not sufficiently allowed for in the clamour of debate; and, besides, the disadvantages of union were near, hard, and actual, the advantages remote, and contingent on many things and persons. Union wore the look to men like Abercromby and Lord Belhaven of absorption, if not extinction. Abercromby was appointed physician to James II., but the Revolution deprived him of the post. Crawford (in his Peerage, 1716) ascribes the title of Lord Glasford to an intended recognition of ancestral loyalty; its bestowment in 1685 corresponding with the younger brother's graduation as M.D., may perhaps explain his appointment. A minor literary work of Abercromby's was a translation of M. Beague's partizan History (so called) of the War carried on by the Popish Government of Cardinal Beaton, aided by the French, against the English under the Protector Somerset, which appeared in 1707. The work with which Abercromby's name is permanently associated is his already noticed Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation, issued in two noble folios, vol. i. 1711, vol. ii. 1716. In the titlepage and preface to vol. i. he disclaims the ambition of being an historian, but in vol. ii., in title-page and preface alike, he is no longer a simple biographer, but an historian. That Dr Abercromby did not use the word "genuine history" in his title-page without warrant is clear on every page of his large work. Granted that, read in the light of after researches, much of the first volume must necessarily be relegated to the region of the mythical, none the less was the historian a laborious and accomplished reader and investigator of all available authorities, as well manuscript as

He rose

printed; while the roll of names of those who aided him includes every man of note in Scotland at the time, from Sir Thomas Craig and Sir George Mackenzie to Mr Alexander Nisbet and Mr Thomas Ruddiman. The Martial Achievements has not been reprinted, though practically the first example of Scottish typography in any way noticeable, vol. ii. having been printed under the scholarly supervision of Thomas Ruddiman. The date of his death is uncertain. It has been variously assigned to 1715, 1716, 1720, and 1726, and it is usually added that he left a widow in great poverty. That he was living in 1716 is certain, as Crawford speaks of him (in his Peerage, 1716) 'my worthy friend." Probably he died about 1716. Memoirs of the Abercrombys, commonly given to him, does not appear to have been published. (Chambers's Eminent Scotsmen, s. v.; Anderson's Scottish Nation, s. v.; Chalmers's Biog. Dict., s. v.; Chalmers's Life of Ruddiman; Haller's Bibliotheca Medicine Pract., 4 vols. 4to, 1779; Hutchinson's Biog. Medical, 2 vols. 8vo, 1799; Lee's Defoe, 3 vols. 8vo.) ABERCROMBY, SIR RALPH, K.B., Lieutenant-General in the British army, was the eldest son of George Abercromby of Tullibody, Clackmannanshire, and was born in October 1734. After passing some time at an excellent school at Alloa, he went to Rugby, and in 1752-53 he attended classes in Edinburgh University. In 1754 he was sent to Leipsic to study civil law, with a view to his proceding to the Scotch bar, of which it is worthy of notice that both his grandfather and his father lived to be the oldest members. On returning from the Continent he expressed a strong preference for the military profession, and a cornet's commission was accordingly obtained for him (March 1756) in the 3d Dragoon Guards. through the intermediate gradations to the rank of lieutenant-colonel of the regiment (1773), and in 1781 he became colonel of the 103d infantry. When that regiment was disbanded in 1783 he retired upon half-pay. That up to this time he had scarcely been engaged in active service, was owing mainly to his disapproval of the policy of the Government, and especially to his sympathies with the American colonists in their struggles for independence; and his retirement is no doubt to be ascribed to similar feelings. But on France declaring war against England in 1793, he hastened to resume his professional duties; and, being esteemed one of the ablest and most intrepid officers in the whole British forces, he was appointed to the command of a brigade under the Duke of York, for service in Holland. He commanded the advanced guard in the action on the heights of Cateau, and was wounded at Nimeguen. The duty fell to him of protecting the British army in its disastrous retreat out of Holland, in the winter of 1794-5. In 1795 he received the honour of knighthood, the Order of the Bath being conferred on him in acknowledgment of his services. The same year he was appointed to succeed Sir Charles Grey, as commanderin-chief of the British forces in the West Indies. In 1796, Grenada was suddenly attacked and taken by a detachment of the army under his orders. He afterwards obtained possession of the settlements of Demerara and Essequibo, in South America, and of the islands of St Lucia, St Vincent, and Trinidad. He returned in 1797 to Europe, and, in reward for his important services, was appointed to the command of the regiment of Scots Greys, intrusted with the governments of the Isle of Wight, Fort George, and Fort Augustus, and raised to the rank of lieutenant-general. He held, in 1797-8, the chief command of the forces in Ireland. There he laboured to maintain the discipline of the army, to suppress the rising rebellion, and to protect the people from military oppression, with a care worthy alike of a great general and an enlightened

and beneficent statesman. When he was appointed to the command in Ireland, an invasion of that country by the French was confidently anticipated by the English Government. He used his utmost efforts to restore the discipline of an army that was utterly disorganised; and, as a first step, he anxiously endeavoured to protect the people, by re-establishing the supremacy of the civil power, and not allowing the military to be called out, except when it was indispensably necessary for the enforcement of the law and the maintenance of order. Finding that he received no adequate support from the head of the Irish Government, and that all his efforts were opposed and thwarted by those who presided in the councils of Ireland, he resigned the command. His departure from Ireland was deeply lamented by the reflecting portion of the people, and was speedily followed by those disastrous results which he had anticipated, and which he so ardently desired and had so wisely endeavoured to prevent. After holding for a short period the office of Commander-in-Chief in Scotland, Sir Ralph, when the enterprise against Holland was resolved. upon in 1799, was again called to command under the Duke of York. The difficulties of the ground, the inclemency of the season, unavoidable delays, the disorderly movements of the Russians, and the timid duplicity of the Dutch, defeated the objects of that expedition. But it was confessed by the Dutch, the French, and the British alike, that even victory the most decisive could not have more conspicuously proved the talents of this distinguished officer. His country applauded the choice, when, in 1801, he was sent with an army to dispossess the French of Egypt. His experience in Holland and the West Indies particularly fitted him for this new command, as was proved by his carrying his army in health, in spirits, and with the requisite supplies, in spite of very great difficulties, to the destined scene of action. The debarkation of the troops at Aboukir, in the face of an opposing force, is justly ranked among the most daring and brilliant exploits of the English army. A battle in the neighbourhood of Alexandria (March 21, 1801) was the sequel of this successful landing, and it was Sir R. Abercromby's fate to fall in the moment of victory. He was struck by a spent ball, which could not be extracted, and died seven days after the battle. The Duke of York paid a just tribute to the great soldier's memory in the general order issued on the occasion of his death:-"His steady observance of discipline, his ever-watchful attention to the health and wants of his troops, the persevering and unconquerable spirit which marked his military career, the splendour of his actions in the field, and the heroism of his death, are worthy the imitation of all who desire, like him, a life of heroism and a death of glory." By a vote of the House of Commons, a monument was erected in honour of Sir Ralph Abercromby in St Paul's Cathedral. His widow was created a peeress, and a pension of £2000 a year was settled on her and her two successors in the title. It may be mentioned that Abercromby was returned, after a keen contest, as member of Parliament for his native county of Clackmannanshire in 1773; but a parliamentary life had no attractions for him, and he did not seek re-election. A memoir of the later years of his life (1793-1801), by his son, Lord Dunfermline, was published in 1861.

ABERDARE, a town of Wales, in the county of Glamorgan, on the right bank of the river Cynon, four miles S.W. of Merthyr-Tydvil. The district around is rich in valuable mineral products, and coal and iron mining are very extensively carried on in the neighbourhood. Important tin-works, too, have been recently opened. Part of the coal is used at the iron-works, and large quantities are sent to Cardiff for exportation. Aber