The Savannah morning news., 1901-08-25
A ToPsY TURvEY TOWN.
Northwich, in England, and Some of
Its queer Freaks.
From the Boston Journal.


From the Boston Journal.
There are all kinds of towns in the
,,,orld-towns built to pay blackmail
(sea any United States atlas-towns
hriIt by mistake, towns built for fun,
I'D towns built for the sake of faith.
Iut there is only one town that was
brilt deliberately for the purpose of
foTing into a hole. 1t is the town of
0fortbwich. in Cheshire, England, and
its daily antics furnish more than
srf7cient reason for the celebrated grin
of the Cheshire cat.
Tn Northwich a householder may go
IN bed in the attic to awaken in the
bowels of the earth in the morn. He
doesn't swear. He digs himself up to
oir and daylight with a calm mind
horn of contemplation of similar &C.
currences on every hand. If cow or
a bureau or a friend or a house is
missing in Northwich the inhabitants
do not offer a. reward. They merely
look into the latest hole. In Northwich,
a man is talking business or gossip
with another man and the other man
suddenly begins to sink away, the first
nan simply says, $50 long" and pass
es on.
When a whole house dives headlong
into the subterranean mysteries in
Northwich no one worries Tor the
bouses are hoped with iron bands and
fastened together with nuts and bolts
an readiness for just such a trip. Pc
radically Northwich has to take hold
of itself by it's suspenders and hoist
itself back into a proper and becoming
dignihed position in the upper world.
Now if Boston were to sink away
suddenly and try to hide several miles
deep under the dirt, it would be quite
exnlicable Northwich sinks away be-
cause. like the man who sawed off the
limb that he was sitting on, 1t burrows
under itself and takes away its own
foundations all the time.
II cannot secure itself, because 1t
makes money by taking away it's own
nrops. It isn't worth a pinch of snuff
as town, compared with. what it is
worth as a hole in the ground. That is
because it is a town built on salt.
To mine this salt the clever persons
who owned the mines found that they
needed a town for their employees to live
In and for shops to supply them and
for offices and works. But their call
culations showed that. were they to
buy land enough for that purpose near
their salt deposits, the necessary in
vestment and the interest on that in
vestment would be sad figure to con-
template So they hit on the happy
idea if building the little city on top
of their subterranean treasure house
and then letting it fall into the holes
whenever necessary. 1t was cheaper In
the end.
NorthwIch has salt enough to pickle
all the world. The ancient Romans
knew of its salt springs and used them
with sincere pleasure to cure some of
the ills acquired by high diet and low
living. The equally ancient Britons,
averse as they were to washing and
similar sinful innovations. wallowed in
the salt puddles and felt the more
invigorated because salt water does not
wash away precious and painfully
earned dirt They built hamlet there
and called it something in their own
peculiar and happily extinct language
which, according to achaeologists,
meant BLACK Salt City"
But no one delved deep to find the
source of the saline supply until the
strenuous seventeenth century appear
ed on the stage and produced the un-
pleasant type of man who wanted to
know why. He found the stratum of
rock salt and al once began to af-
f1ict the households of the world with
that diabolically ingenious condiment
which always clogs in the salt cellar
until the top of the vessel gives way,
when it all falls into the only plate of
soup.
For long time only the upper STRAIT
UNI was worked. But finally it was
found that deep below it were great
underground streams of pure brine;
and now the chief method OF mining Is
to pump this brine to the surface and
to crystalize it in the works. 1t is this
pumping method that makes existence
so elusive and puzzling a thing In
Northwich. Formerly, when men SIM
ply dug holes, it was comparatively
easy for person to calculate that
whatever place would fall down after
all the bo-tom had disappeared. But
now that the pumps are at work, 1t is
vastly different The pump may suck
a few thousand cubic feet from under
the northeast end of the town and the
southwest end will fall down. IT all
depends on how the hidden brlie moves
In response to the suction.
Salt brine that amounts to 100000
cubic yards of solid salt Is removed
annually from under Northwich. This
makes a hole large enough to accom-
modate the entire town once year.
And the town takes full advantage of
the opportunity.
One respectable and sober citizen sat
III AIOnl u HIS ilOlleSL HfcpldCC OllS Low
evening watching the rudy flames curl
upward and feeling happy and safe in
the snug domesticity of his home, list
ening to the wild storm without; sud
denly the domestic hearth cracked a
little, sighed a little, caved little, and
then slid away into lower blackness,
leaving him sitting before a yawning
we'll, in the gloomy depths of which he
saw the twinkle of his far withdrawn
fire.
A good and able cow was being
MIXED when at once the mixer was
left before the open cavity in the earth
whence issued plaintive moos. There
was no sweet, fresh milk that night In
his house and that night or the next
morning-not, indeed, until poor Bessie
had suffered the indignity of being
hshed for like shark, and finally, hav-
ing been caught around the horns, or
being hauled to daylight like a bag of
meal. She was covered with brine, and
some Northwch persons aver that the
experience has left indelible marks on
her simple character, and that ever
since her strange experience the milk
she produces is favored with rock
salt
Among the articles that have disap-
peared suddenly in full view Of the
spectators, like the ghost of Hamlets
ldlner, are such things as a sausage