Mr. H. Holland on the Cheshire Rock-salt District. 39 



clearly be understood, and an opportunity given to speculate upon 

 the probable origin of these important strata. The southern parts of 

 Lancashire, the northern extremity of Shropshire, and the whole of 

 the intervening County of Cheshire, form in conjunction one vast 

 tract of plain country, interrupted by few elevations, and these incon- 

 siderable in size and extent. The area of this plain may be regarded 

 as extending nearly fifty miles from north to south, and as having 

 an average breadth of twenty-five or thirty miles. Its eastern 

 boundary, as more immediately regards the County of Chester, is 

 a high range of sandstone hills, stretching from north to south along 

 thp borders of Derbyshire and Staffordshire ; connected on the north 

 with the hills in the West Riding of York, and on their eastern side 

 passing into the limestone hills of Derbyshire. The sandstone, in 

 a considerable part of this range, is slaty in its structure, and would 

 seem to belong to the Independent Coal-formation of Werner, some 

 pretty extensive beds of coal being found and worked under it. The 

 southern boundary of the plain, which is the one approaching most 

 nearly to the rock-salt, is irregularly formed by ridges of limestone 

 and calcareous sandstone, leaving open some communications with the 

 level country in the middle of Shropshire. To the west its limits 

 are marked by the sandstone and limestone hills in the adjoining 

 part of Wales, and by the sandy sestuaries of the Mersey and Dee. 



The only ridge of hills, properly speaking, within the Cheshire 

 plain, is one on the western side of the county, extending with a 

 few interruptions from Frodsham to Malpas, and including in its 

 progress from north to south, the high grounds of Delamere Forest, 

 the Hill of BeestoUj and the Peckforton Hills. This range, which 

 no where attains an elevation of more than four or five hundred feet, 

 is composed entirely of sandstone. A small quantity of copper ore 

 has been found in the Peckforton Hills, which form its southern 



