“Until 1725 the pits had not been sunk very deep, but in that year the talc was sunk through, and soon after every one sunk his pit through the talc, and obtained such a profusion of strong brine that not one-tenth part of it hath ever been used, but ran to waste. In 1773 Joseph Priddey, of Droitwich, informed me that he had sunk several pits, and generally found it about 35 feet to the talc, through the stratum of talc 150 feet, under the talc a river of brine 22 inches deep, under this river a hard rock of salt. When the hole is bored through the talc, the brine bursts up with amazing violence to the surface of the ground. In the year 1774 he sunk another pit, and found it to the talc 53 feet, through the talc 102 feet, the brine river 22 inches, then a rock of salt: he bored 212 feet into this rock, and found it still the same. In 1779 a hole was bored previous so a brine pit being sunk in the yard of Richard Norris, Esq. The strata were, mould 5 feet, marl 35, talc 40, a river of brine 22 inches; under the brine, talc 75 feet, and a rock of salt, into which the workmen bored 5 feet.[1] I have been informed, likewise, by persons employed in sinking these pits, that immediately above the river of brine is a thin crust, easily perforated, and, next to that, a very soft substance, perhaps two feet thick, and then the talc. This talc, or rather gypsum, or alabaster, is a shining fissile species of stone, of a whitish colour. It is so hard that the workmen never sink the pit through it; they bore a hole,
- ↑ The account of the sinking of this pit differs so materially from the rest, that I suspect it must be inaccurate. In the accounts of the sinking of the other pits, the brine flows over rock-salt; but here 75 feet of gypsum intervene between the brine and the salt. As all the pits are situated within the space of a square furlong, it is not probable that so remarkable a change should take place in the relative position of the gypsum and the rock salt.
Vol. II.N
