The spot is well worth visiting, if only to see this remarkable illustration of several consecutive chapters in the history of a cavern. The destructive work of the Limestone quarry, having been checked at this particular point, exposes the whole thing as in a diagram; and the actual evidences are there just as they were produced by the forces acting in successive epochs--the mouth of the original cave, formed perhaps in pre-Triassic times; the masses of drift thrust in by the glaciers; and the new cave floor, with its growth of stalagmites. Since the caves lie at a height of several hundred feet above sea-level, it is fairly certain that the moving glaciers exerted an upward as well as a horizontal force, shoving the plastic masses of clay and débris into the ascending passages, and caulking up, no doubt, a good many tributary galleries that are now unknown. The caves look north, and the material pushed into them must have come from seaward; there is, furthermore, no rock in the adjoining districts that could have yielded this kind of pebbles: so that it appears the stream of glaciers which flowed across from Lancashire and Cheshire, impinging against the contrary flow of ice from Snowdonia, must be held responsible for the presence of these dense deposits. All along the meadow-lands between the Limestone hills and the sea a series of risings or big springs are noticeable from the railway, forming large pools. These are the outlets of the drainage that has been absorbed by the Limestone strata, through which the water has found its way until, meeting with an impermeable layer of rock, or reaching the plane of saturation at sea-level, it has been forced to the surface.
[Illustration: IN THE OGO, NEAR ABERGELE.
The St. George's Caves are situated on and about a wooded hill of Limestone near the village, which adjoins the low-lying lands of Morfa Rhuddlan, the scene of a murderous battle in the year 795. The Celt, with his strong historical imagination, such a factor in national solidarity, still remembers, though confusedly perhaps, some incidents of that calamitous fight. The old woman who pointed out the situation of the caves drew our attention to the ditch and rampart which run round the hillcrest, where it is not protected by cliffs. There, she said, the routed Welsh tribes had entrenched themselves and fought desperately on until every man was put to the sword. The wood on the hilltop is full of graves, she told us, and weapons often come to light there.