Stretford and Urmston Examiner. — 1879-08-09 (Stretford, Greater Manchester, England)

VISIT TO MA.RSTON SALT MINE.  The Marston mine at NOrthwich, to which visitors are readily admitted, is one of the most extensive in the district, and is a highly interesting sight. It has been excavated to a height of 16ft. over an area of about forty acres. The roof is supported on huge square pillars of tylie native rock, left at regular intervals of ten or twelve square yards by the excavators. Both roof and floor have been cut level, and the latter is covered with a coating of pulverised salt, aa dry and as easily disturbed as the dust on a macadamised road on a fine summer day. The air is dry, sweet, and cool, the temperature from one year's end to the other varying Bale from 53deg. Fahr. Even in the feeble light afforded. by the few candles carried by a few visitors and their guide, the surfaces of the pillars and roof display most beautiful effects, and at many points appear to be encrusted with gems. The rock is of various hues, passing from deep red to transparent white, with here and there a touch of yellow. An exAminadon of the roof reveals a striking peculiarity in the formation of the salt rock. It appears to be composed of masses of '.varied figure and of different sizes' and has the effect of ari.kregular species of mosaic work. The outlines are in some cases circular, in others oval, but for the most part pentagonal?: and the separate forms measure from two to twelve feet in diameter. The boundary line of each block is composed of a streak of white from two to six inches wide, and inside this the mass generallY becomes darker towards the centre. For the delectation of visitors coloured light are ignited by the guide, who for that purpose removes to a distance of 100 yards or so. The effect of the light is magical. It reveals for the moment the vastness of the subterranean chamber, and brings out the pillars in full relief. The beauty which even the candle rays enabled one to discover is now intensified a hundredfold; and a person of an imaginative turn of mind might well suppose that he was enjoying the splendour of the scene of Aladdin's adventures. The play of the light among the pillars is especially striking; long vistas being opened up here and dark shadows thrown athwart floor and roof there, while the vision is bounded by what appears to be a barrierif darkness 'solidified. Just as the last of the coloured lights is dying out, a terrific peal is heard, and a noise as of thunder sweeps through the mine, echoing and re-echoing for several seconds. The alarm which this unexpected occurrence naturally creates in the mind of the unaccustomed visitor is allayed by the explanation that the noise was merely the report of a blasting charge fired by the miners in the course of • their operations. The guide having rejoined his party, an advance is made to the extremity of the workings where the miners are engaged, and here the manner in which our piece of rock salt was wrenched from its native ,bed was seen. As supplied for domestic use, salt is a more or• less Powdery material, but as it is found here, four hundred feet below ground, it is very compact; and requires as much force and skill to quarry as coal. The miners attack the face of the rock, and cut perpendicular grooves in it. From these they drive bores right and left, which they charge with powder, and thus blast down the salt. To cut it out with the pickaxe would be a tedious process, chiefly because the mineral is not stratified, nor does it separate readily at the veins.-Science for AU.  At the Ormskirk Petty Sessions, on Friday, Thos. Rawlinson, aged 72, was sent to prison for six months for an indecent assault upon a child three years of age. Lord Lytton reports that the distress in the North-west of India is subsiding, and that rains, favourable on the whole, have fallen. In Madras the prospects have much improved, and are now good. At the Derby Assizes, on Friday, Thomas Spooner Litberland, bricklayer, was sentenced to death for the murder of his wife, at Winshull, near Burton-on-Trent, on the 21st June, by cutting her throat. • At the Leeds Assizes, on Friday, the Rev. C. S. Green, Vicar of Helm, near Huddersfield, was awarded £1,600 as compensation for personal injuries sustained in a collision on the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway. "A