204 



■ri IK lUUïISII ISLES. 



port muy bo watcluMl. Tlio two JicbitKjtotis arc \)\cixsant villages to the south-east of 

 lîirkenhead ; wliilst liiMo», with tlie Liverpool Obs3rvatory, lies to the west. 

 P(trk(j(ite is a small \vatorin<^-plaeo on the estuary of the Dee. 



Ascending the Mersey above Liverpool and Birkenhead, we reach Runcor», in 

 the vicinity of the mouth of the Weaver— the busy shipping port of the Stafford- 

 shire Potteries, and of the salt mines in the basin of the Weaver. That river is 

 fed by numerous streams which rise in the saliferous triassic formation. The 

 names of several towns in its neighbourliood terminate in the Celtic wich, 

 or rather wyche, which signifies "salt work," and must not be confounded 

 with llie Danish irlck, the meaning of which is " bay." Of these salt 



Fig. 130.— CiiESTEii Cathedral (as hestoked). 



mines and brine springs those at Northicich are by far the most productive. 

 The saliferous strata have a total thickness of about 100 feet, and extend 

 for a considerable distance beneath the soil. They are honeycombed by the 

 galleries excavated by the miners, and although these are supported by a 

 multitude of pillars, the ground has given way in many places, and a portion of 

 the town had to be deserted by its inhabitants, who have built themselves fresh 

 dwellings at Witton and other villages in the neighbourhood. Middlemch, on the 

 Dane, a tributary of the Weaver, and Nantwich, a quaint old town, on the Weaver 

 itself, are the principal amongst the other salt towns of Cheshire. In favourable 

 years the mines and springs of the Weaver basin yield over 1,000,000 tons of salt, 



