460 Mr, A. B. Northcote on the Brine-springs of Cheshire. 
and evaporating the clear solution. The principal varieties ma- 
nufactured are three: the salt of coarsest grain, or bay-salt; that 
of the finest grain, to which the name of table-salt is applied ; 
and an intermediate variety, which is called common salt. The 
latter is made in the largest quantity, and forms the principal 
part of the vast export of Cheshire. More than three-fourths of 
the total amount of salt produced is used for foreign consump- 
tion; and of the remaining fourth, a considerable portion is em- 
ployed in the supply of the British fisheries. It has, however, 
only attained its reputation after a somewhat severe struggle 
with foreign competitors ; for in the year 1810, Mr. Henry* 
found it necessary to set forth an apology for British salt as 
an agent in curing provisions in no way inferior to that pre- 
pared from sea-water by evaporation on the shores of the Medi- 
terranean, and to deprecate the folly of Great Britain in expend- 
ing large sums of money in the purchase of an article, which 
she possessed the means, beyond almost any other country in 
Europe, of drawing from her own internal resources. Fortu- 
nately these remonstrances were not addressed in vain, and this 
country soon ceased to neglect her native produce, and to import 
that from abroad which she had in such abundance and of such 
excellent quality at home. 
The great means, however, of extending the salt trade in this 
country, has been the gradual improvement in the mode of raising 
and evaporating the brine. Originally, in the early days of the 
manufacture, the method of obtaining salt from the brine by 
evaporation was unknown ; and its preparation consisted only in 
pouring the brie upon burning branches of oak and hazel, from 
the ashes of which the deposited salt was afterwards collected. 
At length, however, the plan of evaporation was devised ; but for 
a long time wood was the only fuel, of which such immense quan- 
tities were consumed at the salt-works in Droitwich in the time 
of Camden, that he represents Feckenham Forest and the neigh- 
bouring woods as becoming perceptibly thinner and thinner day 
by day. This havoe seems to have been continued notwith- 
standing until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the 
gradual introduction of coal superseded the more primitive kind 
of fuel+. In the methods adopted in raising the brine, great alter- 
ation also has taken place in the lapse of time; at Northwich, in 
Camden’s time, a pit existed which furnished an abundant supply, 
but the way in which it was brought to the surface was crude in 
the extreme: the pit was provided with stairs, by means of which 
men.descended with leathern buckets ; these they filled with the 
water, and then ascending emptied their contents mto troughs, 
* Phil. Trans. Royal Soc. 1810, p. 89. 
+ Holland’s General View of the Agriculture of Cheshire, p. 71. 
