108 



Selections. [No. 7, new series. 



the neighbouring woods as becoming perceptibly thinner and thin- 

 ner day by day. This havoc seems to have been continued, not- 

 withstanding, until the middle of the seventeenth century, when 

 the gradual introduction of coal superseded the more primitive 

 kind of fuel.* In the methods adopted in raising the brine, great- 

 alteration also has taken place in the lapse of time ; at Northwich, 

 in Camden's time, a pit existed which furnished an abundant sup- 

 ply, but the way in which it was brought to the surface was crude 

 in the extreme ; the pit was provided with stairs, by means of 

 which men descended with leathern buckets ; these they filled with 

 the water, and then ascending emptied their contents into troughs, 

 which served as reservoirs for the wich-houses.f From manual 

 labour they passed to the employment of horses for this purpose ; 

 water-power and wind-mills were subsequently used ; but all have 

 been superseded of late years by the superior efficiency of the 

 steam-engine. The methods of evaporation have also undergone 

 vast extension and improvement. In early times this process was 

 conducted in small leaden vessels six of which they had in every 

 house at Nantwich, and the salt was removed by women with little 

 wooden rakes, placed in baskets, and drained. \ These six leaden 

 pans were afterwards exchanged for four iron ones, about 6 inches 

 in depth and of a surface of about a square yard, capable of hold- 

 ing the same contents as the original leaden vessels.- The limited 

 extent of the operations thus conducted diminishes our wonder at 

 the great proportion of wick -houses existing at these places during 

 the middle ages, and so far surpassing the number in operation at 

 the present day. Even so recently as a century ago, the largest 

 pans at Northwich were only 20 feet long by 9 or 10 broad ; 

 whilst those employed 40 years since had a superficies of 600, 800, 

 and 1000 feet, with a depth of from 16 to 18 inches. The area of 

 the pans has now, I suppose, almost reached its limit ; some which 

 I saw at Mr. Blackwell's works at Wheelock having a length of 

 70 feet and a width of 23 feet, making 1610 feet of surface. The 

 heat is generally applied directly by the flue of from one to three 



* Holland's General view of the Agriculture of Cheshire, p. 71. 

 t Ibid, p. 48. 

 % Ibid, p. 50. 



