Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/347

 3** THE HlSTMf :■ Book f • Mid the ufe Of them in general having defcended /among us very nearly to the prefent period Such it would be peculiarly ae- ceflary to have in the ftatkra, that the garrifon might be pro* dently provided againft a fiege. And the Mancunian water- mill was neceffarily planted immediately below the ftafcion and the town, and upon the rocky channel of the Medlock. There, a little above the antient ford, the fluiceof the- mill was fccci- dentally discovered about four and twenty years ago. There, on the margin of Dyer's Croft and oppofite to Mr, Marklaud's Conftru&ipns, the current of the Medfock, accidentally iwetied with the rains and obftru&ed in its courie by a dam, broke down the northern bank, (wept away a venerable oak upon the e4ge of it, and difclofed a long tunnel in the rode beneath, This tunnel I have fince laid open in part with a fpade. It ap^ geared entirely uncovered at the top, was about one yard in width and another in depth, but gradually narrowed to the bottom. The fides Ihewed everywhere the irtarks of the tool upon the rock, and the courie of it was parallel with the chap* nell It was bared by the torrent only for twenty-five yards A&i lengthy but'ipuft have v been evidently . continued . for fevera}' y]ards t farther,! having originally begun, as *hp nature of the ground evinces, juft above the large curvature in the channel o£, the Medlock. w ' * * . Vj£or ; 'tKe firft.five or* fix centuries of the Roman. itate. titer* were no public breacT-bakers in the. city of Rome" p T^ e F wei*U firft uitroduced* into Rome from the Eaft, at the conclufion of the war with Penes, and about the year 167 before the natiytty:, of Chrift'^ And before the cbnclufioir of the firfl cenfeiry af-i fer the Nativity the Roman families were, (applied by them, re- gularly every morning with frefh loaves for breakfaft *!. But the. Romans did not introduce them into Mancunians, the Latin* name of a, bread'-bater being utterly unknown to the British Jan-r guage in general r . an*T bread-bakers being even, recently, intro- duced ihto Manchefter in particular. Among the primitive Bri- -tons. of th& South, who raifed corn and. formed it into bread* .r 1 »