73 feet from Caersws, and running down again
by a 645 feet drop to the Dovey Valley at Machynlleth. This involved a
gradient, at one point, of as much as 1 in 52, and, just after leaving
the summit the line had to pierce through the hillside. A tunnel was
originally thought of, but abandoned in favour of a cutting through solid
rock to a depth of 120 feet. It was while excavations between the summit
and the cutting were being made that the engineers discovered a strange
geological formation, which, still observable from the train on the
left-hand side immediately after leaving Talerddig station for
Llanbrynmair, has come to be popularly known as "the natural arch." The
work of excavating the cutting was no child's play. But it proved a
profitable part of the contract, and it seems to have furnished not only
enough stone for many of the adjacent railway works, but, according to
popular rumour, the foundation of Mr. David Davies's vast fortune.
Seeking an investment for the money he made out of it, it is said, Mr.
Davies turned his thoughts to coal and in the rich mineral district of
the Rhondda Valley it was sunk, rapidly to fructify, and to form the
basis of that great industrial organisation the Ocean Collieries, famed
throughout this country and wherever coal is used for navigation.

[Picture: Talerddig Cutting. Reproduced from the "Great Western
Magazine."]

For Mr. Davies was now left to finish the Newtown and Machynlleth line
alone. While he was obtaining stone--and gold--out of Talerddig, his
former partner, Mr. Savin, had turned his attention to another link in
the chain between the Severn and the sea. In the end this arrangement,
although it seems to have led to some little feeling between the former
partners, which Mr. Whalley and others did their best to dispel, probably
expedited the completion of the through connection. At any rate, it did
not hinder progress among the hills. In this, the "long looked-for
arrival of the world-wide famed iron-horse," as an expansive journalistic
scribe put it, at Carno, was celebrated by rejoicings, and a dinner given
by Mr. David Davies to his foremen and a presentation by him of a purse
of 50 pounds to the "meritorious engine-driver, Mr. Richard Metcalfe."
Toasts were honoured, and Mr. Davies giving that of the evening,
expatiated at length on the virtues of the redoubtable "Richard." The
whole secret of the speed with which th