ON THE PRICE OF SALT. 433 



pier and Oxford was rectified by the Act of Parliament (2 1 Jac. I. 

 cap. 32), the channel being deepened and locks constructed, 

 the cost of carriage to Oxford becomes lessened, and the 

 difference between the two districts is less marked. Water- 

 carriage by the Thames, as I shall show hereafter, was very 

 cheap, and regular communication a great convenience 1 . 

 The difference of price then I conclude, taking the Oxford 

 purchases mainly into account, is due almost entirely to the 

 cost of carriage to the Oxford market, where the article seems 

 to have been uniformly bought. 



Eastern prices fail me for eleven years out of the whole 

 period, Midland for eighteen, the principal gap in the former 

 being found at the end of the first quarter of the seventeenth 

 century, while the broken and slovenly accounts at Oxford 

 explain the deficiencies in the last quarter of the same 

 century for the second set of averages. Winchester and 

 Eton rarely supply entries. The salt required for table 

 and kitchen was obtained as need arose by the manciple and 

 accounted for Bunder a general head. 



There is only one year under the first decade in which 

 Eastern prices are considerably raised. This is in 1586, a dear 

 year for corn. The specially dear year in Oxford is 1585, 

 which was also a dear wheat year. In the next decade, the 

 specially dear years are, for the East, 1597 and 1598, while in 

 the Midland places, the five years 1596-1600 are years of 

 exalted prices. In the next, the Eastern prices are at the 

 lowest of the whole period. But the Oxford and other Midland 

 rates are slightly rising over the earlier average. During the 

 next ten years, prices continue to rise, more in the East than 

 elsewhere, the general average being considerably affected by 

 a very high price in 1621 at Thcydon Gernon, the only Eastern 

 locality which gives me a quotation, Cambridge failing from 1620 

 till 1631, and the entries being derived from other places. In 



1 There have been of late years a good many projects suggested for modifying 

 the channel of the Thames from Oxford downwards. It is to be hoped that the 

 Conservancy will examine into what this part of the river was before the engineer- 

 ing of the seventeenth century was carried out 



f VOL. V. F f 



