Page:VCH Staffordshire 1.djvu/320

 A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE did far from London, cut off from easy communication with the continent of Europe, shut in on the north by wild tracks of moorland and limestone hills, with the thickly wooded Cannock Chase on the south and the Welsh mountains as a barrier in the western distance. For the numerous rivers of Staffordshire, though excellent for fertilizing purposes, were practically useless for navigation. The Trent only becomes navigable at Burton, and its distance at this point from the eastern sea makes it negligible as a ready means of communication. All the other rivers of any importance take an easterly direction, and there was thus no way of reaching the western coast by water until the cutting of canals in the eighteenth century. As to the roads, which are now excellent, the evidence goes to show that in the central part of the county they were good, but not elsewhere. Dr. Plot, writing in 1686, says the highways, owing to the gravelly nature of much of the soil, are universally good, except in the most northerly parts of the moorlands, where they are nearly impassable. . . and a little about Wednesbury, Sedgley, and Dudley, where they are necessarily worn by the carriage of coal. He goes on to quote a remark of King James, who, speaking jocularly of this county, once remarked that it was ' fit only to be cut out into thongs to make highways for the rest of the kingdom.' 6 But as the developing industry of the county was centred within these northern and southern parts, it was peculiarly unfortunate that the roads there should be so bad. The potters suffered much in the first half of the eighteenth century from the badness of the roads. Many of the materials for their manufacture had to be imported from outside the county, and these, as well as the finished goods for export, were conveyed by means of ' pot-wagons,' or on the backs of pack-horses. The roads are described as being narrow, with high banks at their sides, always, even in summer, soft and clayey, and full of deep ruts. In winter, the strings of pack-horses could scarcely get from place to place, and many a poor, horse fell dead on the roadside, breaking, as it fell, the heavy load of crockery it bore on its back. 6 Besides coal and iron, Staffordshire possesses other mineral resources in limestone, alabaster, salt, clays and marls for the rougher sort of pottery ware, and a certain amount of good building stone. Its rock formation is of a kind to ensure a pure and plentiful water supply, owing to the porous nature of the new red sandstone which covers the greater part of the county. Besides this, the hill regions of millstone grit and carboniferous limestone which lie east of the northern coalfield are the source of innumerable springs of pure water, and the slope of the boundary hills such as Mow Cop and Cloud is such as to keep the streams well within the county. The millstone grit indeed and the coal measures throw off most of the 29 in. of annual rainfall, 7 though it is to be noted that the water drawn from the coal measures is contaminated, and therefore useless for purposes of consumption. Staffordshire gains a further supply from the limestone hills of Derbyshire, and it seems probable that the great underground reservoir of ' The general average for the county, calculated from the rainfall returns covering a period of twenty jrears, is 29 in. For the north-west it rises to 33*12 in. whilst in the south-east it only reaches 26 in. 276
 * Rob. Plot, The Nat. Hist, of Staff. (1686), no. Llewellyn Jewitt, The Wedgwoods, 170.