The universal geography : earth and its inhabitants

262 THE BRITISH ISLES.
by a briuge, the same dialect is heard on both banks ; but where they constitute a
serious obstacle to free intercourse the dialects differ.*
Cheshire consists in the main of a broad plain, which extends from the river
Dee to the Mersey, and is intersected by the Weaver and its tributaries. The soil
of this plain is for the most part loam; it is of exceeding fertility, and it is
impossible to imagine a finer grazing district. The grass retains its verdure
throughout the j^ar, and the dairy husbandry is consequently attended to with
great success. A broken ridge of hills divides this plain into a western and an eastern
portion. It passes into the county from the south, and extends northward as far
as the Lower JIer.sey. Its most remarkable feature is the insulated rock of Beeston,
crowned with the ruins of a castle. In the east the plain is bounded by a range of
uplands, known as Congleton Edge and Macclesfield Forest. These uplands are
a southern extension of the Pennine chain ; they separate Cheshire from Stafford-
3'QO W.Of Gi
Fig. 128.—Chester.
Scale 1 : 500,000.
shire and Derbyshire, and contain coal, iron, and lead. Far more important than
either of these are, however, the salt mines and brine springs in the valley of the
Weaver. In the north-west the plain of Cheshire runs into the peninsula of
Wirral, which juts out to the Irish Sea between the estuaries of the Dee and
Mersey. Cotton and silk spinning and weaving are the principal branches of
manufacture carried on.
Chester, the ancient capital of the county, is seated upon the river Dee, which a
few miles below the city broadens out into a wide and shallow estuary close to the
Welsh frontier. It is of great antiquity, as is proved by its very name, a corrup-
tion of the Roman castrum, and a great Roman highway, now known as Watling
Street, connected it with London and Dover. The foundations of Roman buildings
and antiquities of every description have been discovered. The Romans called
* Jair.cs Pearson ; Nodal and Milncr, " Glossary of the Lancashire Dialect.'