MANUFACTURE OF SALT IN CHESHIRE. 25 



and canals, which suffer seriously) in its damaged state is 

 estimated at £480,000. The amount of depreciation in 

 value is estimated at £168,500. To keep this property in 

 a good state of repair would require on the average £1 8,000 

 per annum. In this estimate, besides omitting railways and 

 canals, no account has been taken of the expenditure of the 

 local boards and highway boards in maintaining their 

 roads and sewers — nor yet of the county authorities in the 

 repair of bridges, nor of the gas- and water-companies 

 in repairs of pipes and loss of gas and water. For all this 

 destruction of property there is no legal remedy, and no 

 compensation whatever is paid. 



The owners whose property suffered so severely applied 

 to Parliament to obtain a Bill called " The Cheshire Salt 

 Districts Compensation Bill." The object of this Bill was 

 to obtain compensation from the salt-manufacturers for the 

 damage caused by the abstraction of the salt in the form of 

 brine. There was no attempt made to obtain payment for 

 the salt taken, but merely for the damage done to the pro- 

 perty overlying the salt. The Bill was not obtained, owing 

 to many serious difficulties that would arise in carrying it 

 out, but chiefly owing to a very ingenious line of defence 

 set up by Mr. De Ranee, a geologist connected with the 

 Ordnance Survey Department. He contended that the 

 enormous subsidences at Winsford were produced naturally 

 by the same causes that produced the Cheshire meres, and 

 that the Northwich subsidences were caused by bad mining. 

 In my opinion — based upon a far more extensive exami- 

 nation of these sinkings than that made by Mr. De Ranee, 

 and formed on the spot with the sinkings proceeding daily 

 before me for a number of years — Mr. De Ranee's theories 

 are wholly untenable. To attribute to ordinary geological 

 causes, which in almost every case work slowly and con- 

 tinuously, the enormous subsidence of the last fifty years, 



