THWICH.]

Northwich has the misfortune to be built on the top of a pie-crust. If
you cover some fruit in a pie-dish with a crust and then pump out the
juice and fruit through a hole in the crust and place a heavy weight on
it, you naturally expect the crust to break and the weight to fall into
the dish. The pie under Northwich is made of rock salt, and on the top
of the salt is a large amount of juice (or brine), and over it is the
earth's crust. But a good many Jack Homers have been at this pie and
have pumped the brine away. The heavy buildings on the crust have then
broken through it, and in this way Northwich is subject to "fits."
Locally they are called "subsidences."

The classic event at Northwich was the upsetting of a house called
"Castle Chambers," occupied at the time by a solicitor. At 3 o'clock one
morning in May, this house fell back into a large hole which suddenly
opened at the rear of it. But not a single brick was moved nor a pane of
glass broken, though the chimney was not proof against such antics and
fell to the floor. This was due to the way in which the house was built.

[Illustration: _May & Co., photo._] [_Northwich._

WHERE A HORSE WAS SWALLOWED UP.]

For so universal and expected are these subsidences, that the houses are
now all built in wooden frames with massive timber beams screwed tightly
together. This has revived a style of building common enough more than a
hundred years ago, specimens of which are often seen in country places.
If the house subsides it falls as a whole and does not necessarily
collapse. All you have to do is to use a screw-jack to raise the house,
fill in the hole, remove the jack, and sleep as before till another
subsidence, when the same operation is gone through. Castle Chambers,
however, were taken down and the ground made "sound." Twelve months
after another subsidence took place, and the result is shown in the
above photograph.

[Illustration: _May & Co., photo._] [_Northwich._

THE SECOND SUBSIDENCE ON THE SITE OF CASTLE CHAMBERS.]

Just opposite Castle Chambers stood the old "Wheat Sheaf Inn." It was
built with timber to resist the dreaded subsidence, but to no purpose.
Money was frequently spent in making good the damage done. One year it
had to be raised no less than nine feet! A year after part of the
building disappeared, then the cellars went, and as a climax a horse
which was in the stable was swallowed up.

One Sunday morning a neighbouring far