In height it is about thirty feet, and in diameter at the top about fifty.

On the top grows a gwern or alder-tree, about a foot thick, its bark terribly scotched with letters and uncouth characters, carved by the idlers of the town who are fond of resorting to the top of the mound in fine weather, and lying down on the grass which covers it.

The Tomen is about the same size as Glendower's Mount on the Dee, which it much resembles in shape.

Both belong to that brotherhood of artificial mounds of unknown antiquity, found scattered, here and there, throughout Europe and the greater part of Asia, the most remarkable specimen of which is, perhaps, that which stands on the right side of the way from Adrianople to Stamboul, and which is called by the Turks Mourad Tepehsi, or the tomb of Mourad.
Which mounds seem to have been originally intended as places of sepulture, but in many instances were afterwards used as strongholds, bonhills or beacon-heights, or as places on which adoration was paid to the host of heaven.
From the Tomen there is a noble view of the Bala valley, the Lake of Beauty up to its southern extremity, and the neighbouring and distant mountains.

Of Bala, its lake and Tomen, I shall have something to say on a future occasion.
Leaving Bala I passed through the village of Llanfair and found myself by the Dee, whose course I followed for some way.