ON THE SALT SPRINGS OF WORCESTERSHIRE. 379 



modities at Stoke Prior, my remarks under this head will be 

 very brief. In addition to its more ordinary uses in ad- 

 mixture with the food of man, salt is extensively employed 

 in our manufactures. It enters into the processes for obtain- 

 ing sal-ammoniac, glass, chloride of lime, and corrosive sub- 

 limate ; it is used also in bleaching, in assaying metals, 

 and in the production of many other articles of commerce. 

 Some idea may be formed of the quantity of salt that 

 is consumed by mankind, by considering how much enters into 

 the composition of our bread. In making this necessary article, 

 to every bushel of flour one j)ound of salt is added ; and it is 

 presumed that, on an average, every adult person consumes, in 

 his bread alone, independent of what is taken in other ways, 

 about two ounces of salt weekly, or upwards of 100 ounces every 

 year. So that taking the population of Worcester and suburbs 

 at 30,000, the inhabitants of this town consume in bread alone 

 1674 cwt. of salt yearly; or, if we take the population of 

 Worcestershire at 210,000, its inhabitants consume 11,718 cwt. 

 every year. 



It is a matter of daily observation, how the instinct of animals 

 prompts them to seek for salt as apparently necessary to their 

 health. The want of this stimulus to the digestive organs is 

 severely felt by the animals in some countries. In some parts 

 of South America there is a great scarcity of salt; and in the 

 States of La Plata, the sheep and cattle, when they discover a 

 pit of clay salt, rush together to feed upon it, and in the 

 struggle, many are trodden to death. In Upper Canada, the 

 cattle have plenty of wild pasture to browse on in the woods, 

 but once in a fortnight they return to the farm of their own 

 accord, in order to obtain a little salt; and when they have eaten 

 it, mixed with their fodder, they return again to the woods. 

 Man obeys the same law as these lower animals, in showing so 

 strong a desire for the mineral and saline waters, and by attributing 

 to them such great powers in preserving and restoring his health. 

 Our own immediate neighbourhood well illustrates this position. 

 The waters of Cheltenham have alone, either immediately or 

 remotely, been the means of attracting to that locality a popula- 

 tion of between twenty and thirty thousand inhabitants; and 

 in Warwickshire, at Leamington, a very large population has 

 been brought together by the same cause. 



Now according to Mr. Murchison, we must look to the bed of 

 rock-salt, which exists in the red marl formation, asaffordingthe 

 principal ingredient, chloride of sodium, in all these mineral 

 waters. He says, " Now if sea-salt be the most abundant saline 

 ingredient in all the mineral waters of Cheltenham, it is present 

 in still larger quantities in those wells which occur near the 

 western edge of the formation, where the Lias forms only a thin 

 covering above the marls of the New Red Sandstone. At the 



