OGWEN Lake is contained within a circumference of about three miles, presenting itself in rather an oval form. It is encircled by mountains, except at the eastern extremity, which fall abruptly into the water, and afford scenery in the highest degree romantic. On the left the broken shattered crags of Trifaen { 48} hang over the margin of the lake, and throw the surface into an everlasting shadow. The distant forms of Francôn mountains are, if possible, still more grand and picturesque; but the side skreen of Braich-ddû slopes down more smoothly and gradually to the water’s surface. Perhaps there are too many broken summits hovering over Ogwen; probably the mind of true taste may think the simplicity and grandeur of the scene interrupted by their repetition, but this is too refined a criticism. Ogwen is generally acknowledged to present the finest lake scene in Caernarvonshire, the very Derwent of North Wales, and, like it, well described as “Beauty sleeping in the lap of Horror.” The waters of Llyn Ogwen abound in a species of red trout, easily taken with the fly, and not inferior in flavour to salmon. The surplus waters discharge themselves at the western end of the pool through a chasm in the rocks, and tumbling in three noble cataracts down a height of about one hundred feet, are concentrated into a bed in the green meadows of Nant Francon; flowing by Dolawen and Penrhyn Castle, they are lost at length in the Mænai straits.
The noble line of road constructed through the Welsh mountains, under the surveillance of parliamentary commissioners, is carried along the very margin of Llyn Ogwen, amidst the great debris that continue annually falling from the rocky sides of Trifaen. In the winter of 1831 upwards of one thousand tons of rock fell from the dizzy heights of Benclog, a little below the Ogwen cataracts; part rolling straight across the road fell into the valley and river in the bottom, while another part having acquired a less momentum rested on the ledge the road supplied them. The intercourse of travellers was for some days impeded, although one hundred miners were engaged in clearing and restoring the surface of the road. A gentleman from the vale of Llanrwst had just passed along in his phaeton, on his way to Bangor, when the terrific sound of the dissolving mountain fell upon his astonished ear.