Welsh Journals

historical side, the publication of new volumes of the County History edited by Professor William Rees is eagerly awaited. Five hundred copies of My Gower were printed in the original edition and they were all sold within a few weeks. A second edition is called for, but before it is printed the text of the original edition ought rigorously to be edited and corrected of spelling errors, especially of Welsh place- and personal names. "Coombe" should not appear for "Cwm", and Sir John Rhys was famous enough not to be referred to as "Rees". The Gazetteer of Welsh Place-names and B. G. Charles's Non-Celtic Place-names in Wales must certainly be consulted before a new edition of My Gower appears. Nevertheless, My Gower is full of the most valuable material essential to all students of the peninsula. It is a monument to a Gower-man who would wish for no better company than to be classed with J. D. Davies of West Gower fame. This he merited. Iorwerth HUGHES JONES. Killay, Swansea. THE STONES OF LLANDAFF CATHEDRAL, by F. J. NORTH. pp. xvii +122. Cardiff; University of Wales Press, 1957. Price 15s. There are few aspects of early Welsh ecclesiastical history which have excited more interest and controversy than the problems surrounding the origin and early development of Llandaff Cathedral. The subject has quite naturally given rise over the years to a considerable body of literature- historical, hagiographical and palaeographical-while much has inevitably been written on the architectural characteristics of the Cathedral. Dr. North's book, however, belongs to none of these classifications. For this is not one more architectural survey in the tradition of Conybeare, Freeman, Lovegrove and others, but rather an analysis of the stones themselves, of the manifold problems they raise, and of the far-reaching speculations they inspire. The description here given of the Cathedral fabric originated as a lecture delivered to the Friends of the Cathedral in 1941, when the tragic war damage of that year gave to a professional geologist a splendid oppor- tunity to examine in greater detail the individual stones, and to identify and locate the rocks from which they had been shaped. The work, therefore, is an essentially pioneer study, written with a care and devotion to scholarship that should immediately command respect. Dr. North demonstrates quite clearly that each of the successive building episodes was characterised by the choice of one type of stone for the principal part of the structure. Any departure from this practice was usually brought about by a desire to utilise as far as possible stones that had been left from an earlier building episode, or that had then fortuitously become accessible as a result of some demolition. Each type provides, to those who are initiated in such matters, eloquent testimony of the particular conditions under which it was formed, and we are given as a background to this analysis a masterly summary of the main geological changes and conditions which resulted in the formation of the oldest rocks in the Llandaff