Northwich. 105 



sugar-candy. Large quantities of brine are obtained 

 also from between the rocks and clay above, and this 

 being pumped out, is evaporated, and converted, as the 

 crystal is in due course, into salt as understood by the 

 consumer. Percolating through the rocks, wherever 

 pierced for shafts, the brine forms salt-stalactites of con- 

 siderable size and beauty, while articles allowed to lie in 

 the pools below in time become encrusted, after the 

 manner of " alum baskets." When large parties are 

 invited, it is customary to entertain them with music, 

 trumpets, explosions, the magic lanthorn, &c., the effects 

 of all of which are as curious as they are novel. Thirty 

 miners, one horse^ and a single line of rails, with lateral 

 tramways, were in 1861 sufficient for the whole work of 

 the mine. With the aid of blasting powder, 200 tons of 

 crystal are extracted every week. 



These priceless deposits ar,e embedded in strata of 

 rock belonging to the " Keuper " portion of the Trias. 

 They lie below the valley of the Weaver, and form two 

 distinct beds, an upper and- a lower. Reckoning from 

 the surface of the ground, first there come 1 20 feet of 

 coloured marl, then come 75 feet of salt-crystal, then 

 another 30 feet of coloured marl, and then comes the 

 second bed of crystal, believed to be a hundred feet in 

 thickness. When the deeper deposit was discovered, 

 the excavation of the upper one was discontinued. The 

 area covered is irregularly oval, and about a mile and a 

 half in length, by three quarters of a mile in breadth, and 



