HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE. [169 



county, " that have this surprising- quality, that though they are 

 cold, they never freeze in the hardest weather ; such is the spring 

 that feeds the mill-pool at Overholm, near Leek, and the spring 

 which supplies the mill at Tittensor ; whence it is that the mills of 

 hoth these places never fail going in the severest frost. There are 

 springs also about Hints that do not freeze ; also ClayerVpool, in 

 the corner of the park at Enville, which is fed by a spring (com- 

 ing out of a spout) called Shadwell, under which if you set a ves- 

 sel of water frozen, it will certainly thaw it." The Brown-hills 

 engine coal-pit water, in a very severe frost, kept the Wyrley 

 canal fluid for a considerable distance from its place of supply, 

 though the canal was hard frozen over in general. This is to be 

 accounted for, because the supply of spring water comes from a 

 degree of heat within the earth higher than the freezing point, 

 which consequently keeps fluid till cooled by the external air 

 to a degree below 32. We remember some years ago observing 

 the effects of water, from a spring of sensible warmth near Mo- 

 thershall, early in the season, in fertilizing the grass, and meadow- 

 bouts in blossom, a fortnight or three weeks before other places : 

 water within the earth is often warmer than the external air, gene- 

 rally so in winter, though not in summer. 



Of the Salt Springs in divers parts of the county, (says Plot) 

 the most considerable are in the parish of Weston-upon-Trent, be- 

 longing to Earl Ferrers, of Chartley, where they make as good 

 white salt for all uses as any in England, though not to so great 

 advantage as in Worcestershire and Cheshire, where the brine is so 

 strong as to yield from a fourth to a sixth part salt ; whereas here 

 in Staffordshire it affords but a ninth: 15 hogsheads of brine made 

 nine strike of salt after 16 hours of evaporation. 



Besides these salt springs, there are other weak brines that gently 

 rise out of the earth about Enson, St. Thomas, and iu the parish of 

 Ingestre, in a ground called the Marsh, where the brine of itself 

 breaks out of the ground, and frets away the grass, and the very 

 earth also, so that it lies in a plash half a foot lower than the turf 

 about it : the cattle standing in it in the summer time, and throw- 

 ing it on their backs with their tails, the sun so candies it upon 

 them, that they appear as if covered with a hoarfrost. -Brine lately 

 appeared in the meadows of Rickerscote, near Stafford, upon dig- 

 ging into the earth, but was soon diluted by the river water; and 

 a water has been since found there strongly impregnated with salt 

 and sulphur. 



