1848.] ORMEROD ON THE SALT-FIELD OF CHESHIRE. 281 
houses were not so distorted as to attract attention. Since that time 
they have been pulled down. The distance from these cottages to 
the pits that filled is about one-third of a mile. 
With respect to the boundaries of the salt at Northwich, the fol- 
lowing particulars may be mentioned. At the brook between Pick- 
mere and Budworth Meer are the most northerly traces of the pre- 
sence of salt. That this exists there may be inferred from the gra- 
dual sinking of the ground which is taking place. Near Budworth 
Meer the water from the brook is gradually increasing on a field, 
and a farm-house situated near the same place is shaken by the same 
cause. The exact northern extent has not been discovered. It is 
probably the line of fault before-mentioned which passes from the 
South Lancashire coal-field by Warburton and Rosthern, in a south- 
easterly direction to the Rudyard fault. 
The north-west and south-east sides thereof are by Dr. Holland 
stated to be apparently parallel, and to be distant from each other 
about 1300 yards. These sides are found to be abrupt. At a mine 
approaching very nearly to the eastern limit of the area contained 
between the above boundaries the upper bed of rock-salt was actually 
worked through im a horizontal direction on that side, and was dis- 
covered to fall off with a very rapid declivity. A similar case is said 
to have been observed in another pit on the same side. (Holland’s 
Cheshire Salt, Geol. Trans. vol. i. p. 46.) 
That these salt-beds do not now extend to the east continuously is 
shown by the Middlewich beds above-mentioned, and by the borings 
for salt made by Mr. Smith at Wincham. ‘These borings to the 
depth of 300 feet, or about 200 feet below sea-level, were as follows :— 
27 feet soil and marl. 
150 feet plaster and marl. 
2 or 3 inches of rock-salt. 
123 feet marl and plaster ending in common red marl. 
(Information of Mr. Dodgson, Holford Mill.) 
These borings were made by the side of the canal, and therefore 
on the same level with some of the pits at Marston in which the 
depth to the first salt is about 135 feet, or about 35 feet below sea- 
level. These workings therefore show the existence of a line of fault. 
This is supposed to run almost along the course of the Weever in a 
north-easterly direction from the crook in the river near Vale Royal. 
On the south the sinking of the land has been shown as ceasing a 
little to the south of the Weever Bridge, and that south of and near 
this point borings have been taken deeper than to the level of the 
salt at Northwich without reaching the same. To this point the salt 
may be considered as extending, and to be there cut off by the north- 
westerly extension of the dislocation before-mentioned as passing be- 
tween Winsford and Middlewich. This dislocation will thence pass 
to the north of Barnton. 
At Barnton, Dr. Holland states, by the side of the Weever, a weak 
brine was discovered at the depth of 115 feet. In 1842 a search for 
salt was made at the same place. A bastard brine was met with at 
a depth of between 165 and 190 feet. At 18 feet lower a second 
