1848.| ORMEROD ON THE SALT-FIELD OF CHESHIRE. 273 
is covered with deep sand. In some localities, as at Minshul Vernon, 
brackish water is met with. 
The next point at which salt is known or worked is Middlewich. 
Between the line of salt-works reaching from Lawton to Middlewich 
and the river Dane, the drift covers the greater part of the country ; 
but from various borings and sinkings, and the sections exhibited in 
the banks of the Dane, the extension of the gypseous beds to that 
river is proved.» Their further extension to the north is, as before 
stated, certainly not extensive ; they are probably cut off by the pro- 
longed Rudyard fault. 
The red marl (as I am informed by Mr. J. H. Williamson, to whom 
I am indebted for much information both as to the coal and red sand- 
stone of the district near Mow,) can be traced from Lawton to Con- 
gleton, lying at the western foot of Mow Cop. 
As above mentioned, the waterstone crops out in the Dane a little 
distance to the west of Bosley aqueduct. It is here much broken, 
but the general dip is west by south. Near the fault the dip is 45°, 
which gradually diminishes to 16°, and then continues to near Holmes 
Chapel at a variable dip, probably not exceeding, and generally less 
than, that last mentioned. The waterstone beds are of similar cha- 
racter and have the same peculiar crystal as those at Lymm, Preston- 
on-the-hill, and elsewhere*. At Colley Mill the gypseous beds crop 
out, overlying the waterstones, and extending thence downwards along 
the Dane. These are irregular and contorted, but have a general 
westerly dip. I have not been able to procure any evidence of salt 
being found near Congleton ; the evidence rather tends to show that 
the contrary is the case. 
At Bug Lawton, about half a mile from Congleton, two borings 
were made by the side of the Dane, one of them to the depth of 360 
feet, or about to sea-level, and brine was not met with. Gypseous 
beds are seen at intervals along the banks of the Dane and the brooks 
falling into it down to Cranage, near Holmes Chapel, and having the 
same general westerly dip. Between the Dane and Wheelock the 
existence of salt may be presumed at Arclid, two miles west of Sand- 
bach, from the smking ground. At Sandbach, near Mr. Percival’s 
factory, at 90 feet or 143 feet above sea-level, the gypseous beds were 
reached, but no brine was found. At Elton, gypseous beds were 
reached at 90 feet, which were bored into 99 feet, in all about 140 
feet below sea-level, and salt was not found. At Red Lane, at Elton, 
half-way between Booth Lane Head and the river Wheelock, a brine- 
spring rises to the surface, abovt 130 feet above sea-level. At Spros- 
ton Green, half-way between Middlewich and Holmes Chapel, and a 
quarter of a mile to the south of the Dane, gypseous beds were reached 
at 90 feet, or a little above sea-level. 
For many particulars as to this district I am indebted to the Rey. 
* At this place the crystals are of silicate of protoxide of iron. This seeming 
crystal is probably caused by the component matter taking the places of scattered 
crystals of chloride of sodium, the form of which both in Cheshire and at Slime 
Road in Gloucestershire they have taken; exhibiting, if so, the lowest traces of 
the sait. 
