Mr. Wyatt adopted the plan of inlaying tesseræ of stone with coloured cements; and later trials have been made of terra-cotta inlaid with similar cements; but in all such contrivances the unequal hardness of the materials has led to unevenness in the wear. Mr. Blashfield introduced the method of forming the tessera of cements coloured with metallic oxides; but the brown colour of the Roman cement requisite for outof-door use is found to give a dusky hue to all the tints. Bitumen, coloured with metallic oxides, has been tried; but the bitumen soon wears to an irregular surface. A more successful plan than any of these was the one adopted by Mr. Singer, in which tessera are formed by cutting pieces of the required form out of thin layers of clay; which pieces are afterwards dried and baked, and united together by a peculiar cement. In another method liquid clay is poured into moulds.

But the method which seems likely to have the most lasting results is that which sprang from Mr. Prosser's remarkable discovery about ten years ago. It is found that when flint and fine clay are reduced to a fine powder, and in that state subjected to strong pressure between steel dies, the powder becomes compressed into about a quarter of its former bulk, and is converted into a compact solid substance of extraordinary hardness and density. This curious discovery was first applied to the manufacture of buttons, to supersede those of mother-of-pearl, bone, &c.; but it has since been brought into requisition for making the cubical or other formed pieces for tesselated pavements. In Messrs. Minton's large establishment at Stoke the new process is carried on; and it is certainly one which seems susceptible of great extension. The tessera may be of any colour-white, black, red, blue, yellow, brown; and of any definite form-quadrilateral, triangular, rhomboidal, hexagonal. In the formation of a pavement with such tesseræ, the pieces are first put together in their proper order, face downward, on a smooth surface, so that they find their level without any trouble to the workman; and as soon as a sufficient portion of the design is finished, it is backed with fine Roman cement, which is worked in to fill the crevices between the tesseræ. The pavement is thus formed into smooth flat slabs of convenient size, which are laid down on any properly-prepared foundation.

ENVIRONS OF THE POTTERIES.

Let us now look around a little, and glance at the vicinity of the Potteries, to see what are the general characteristics of the neighbourhood. There are not wanting a few of those spots which a working population eagerly welcome as the scene of a day's holiday; while there are others which appeal to a higher or at least a different taste.

A map of Staffordshire shows to us, within a circle of ten or twelve miles' radius around the centre of the Potteries, the towns of Leek, Congleton, Crewe, Newcastle, Stone, and Cheadle; or rather, although Congleton and Crewe are not in this county, they are in that portion of Cheshire which abuts upon it, and are within the linear limits above-named. Leek, lying northeast of the Potteries, connected with them by the Caldon Canal, and on the road from thence to Buxton and Bakewell, is neither a pottery town nor an iron and coal town; neither, on the other hand, is it simply an agricultural town. It is one of the silk towns; one of the small knot of towns in which this manufacture is carried on. It is singular to see that, Derby and Manchester being the two chief silk towns, three of the others lie along the road leading from one to the other; as if this portion of national wealth, travelling on its way from Derby to Manchester, dropped a little of the treasure as it went along. Leek, Congleton, and Macclesfield, the three towns here alluded to, all lie between Manchester and Derby. Leek takes up chiefly the ribbon or narrow silk department; and many hundreds of men, with a much larger number of women and children, are thus employed. There are near the town a few fragments of a Cistercian Abbey, called 'Dieulacres;' but it is rather as an entrance-gate to the hilly district of Derbyshire, than as a town picturesque in itself, that Leek is likely to attract notice. The country becomes wild immediately to the east of Leek, and maintains that feature till we reach Longnor, where the beautiful river Dove introduces us at once to a new scene-a scene which has already occupied a place in our Work (vol. iii., p. 222).

height of the hill (nearly 1,100 feet), and the somewhat bleak character of the surrounding district, render it but ill-qualified to bear a comparison with the holiday hills within reach of the Londoners.

Congleton is a place of much more antiquity and interest than Leek. There is evidence that it was once a military station of the Romans; and there are many features about it which speak of past times.

Almost the whole of the inhabitants are more or less dependent on the silk-manufacture, which is carried on more largely than at Leek. The silk-mills lie along the margin of the river Dove, which passes through the town. The manufacture is said to be almost wholly confined to black silks. There was a time when tagged leather laces, called 'Congleton points,' were a very considerable article of manufacture. At the margin of the town are some cotton-mills. Considered simply as a town, Congleton is about a mile in length, and is beautifully situated in a deep and picturesque valley on the banks of the Dane. At the western extremity of the town are the mansions of the opulent manufacturers, surrounded by shrubberies and ornamental gardens; but the interior of the town contains more of those little bits which an artist would love to sketch. There are many of the old houses which are so common in Cheshire, constructed entirely of timber frame-work and plaster.

Within an easy walk of Leek and Congleton are the ruins of Biddulph Hall (Cut, No. 8). This interesting fragment is all that remains of a structure which was built in 1558 it was ravaged by the Roundheads about a century later, consequent upon the support which its then owner, John Biddulph, gave to Charles I. The ruins of the old mansion are picturesquely placed on the side of a hill, and are worth more attention than their secluded situation allows them to receive.

The circle which passes through Congleton and Crewe just skirts upon Sandbach. This latter-named town stands upon a very pretty eminence on the banks of the river Wheelock, and commands within its range of view an extensive sweep of mountain scenery, from the Derbyshire hills in the east to the Welsh mountains in the west. Sandbach occupies a sort of neutral ground as to productive industry: it touches slightly upon many departments, but does not belong entirely to any. It stands on the verge of the brine-spring district, and is so far connected with the salt-region of Cheshire; it lies on the same mail-coach route (or what used to be a mail-coach route before the days of railways) as Newcastle-under-Lyme, at ten or a dozen miles distant from it, and has shared with it a portion of its shoe trade: it lies south-west of the Macclesfield and Congleton district, and has, within the last few years, shared with those towns in the silk manufacture. Of Crewe, what ought we to say-what can we say, in the brief limits left to us? That wonderful place, the growth of railways-by railways formed, and fed, and maintained,—is almost worthy of a sheet for itself; and when we see what Sir Francis Head has made of it, in his recent graphic article in the Quarterly Review,' we feel that it would be better to pass the subject untouched, than to spoil it by wedging it in where there is not adequate room for it. Fortunately, it so nearly escapes the limits of our ten miles radius, that we have an excuse for leaping over it, or rather, for keeping on the hither side of it. Suffice it to say, that Crewe was hardly even a village when the Grand Junction Railway was planned, and that now it is the

largest depôt of the largest Railway Company: it is a considerable town, every house in which, and every person in which, are more or less dependent on railways for support. Six great lines of railway start from this spot,-five in work and one yet in nubibus. The first leads to Chester and Holyhead, the second to Warrington and the north, the third to Manchester and the West Riding, the fourth to the Potteries and Derby, the fifth to Stafford and London, and the sixth (one member of the Shropshire Union Railway, yet only partially developed,) through Shropshire into central Wales.

Keeping within closer limits, but on the same side of the Potteries, we find Newcastle-under-Lyme, which we have before named as becoming every year more and more closely, connected with Stoke by the increase of buildings between the two towns. The antiquaries have had some little difficulty to determine what this lyme means there is no River Lyme or Mount Lyme in Staffordshire; and an explanation has to be sought for in some other direction. It appears that there was an ancient forest or woodland, which, in very early times, separated Cheshire from the rest of England: this forest was called Lime, probably from its standing on the limes, or border. There are many places situated on or near this margin of the two counties, whose names have a terminal syllable of lyme, lyne, lime, or line; such as Ashton-under-Line, Burslem (anciently Burr-wardes-lime), Newcastle-under-Lyme, Madelyunder-Lyme, Whitmore-under-Lyme, Belton-underLyme, and Audlem (Old Lyme); and it seems a rational conjecture that these terminal syllables may have arisen from the proximity to the lime or forest. Be all this as it may, however, Newcastle-under-Lyme is an ancient town, which has returned members to Parliament since the reign of Edward III., and has been a corporate town since the reign of Henry II. The town is very irregular; it is somewhat difficult to say which is the High-street; although that which forms part of the old coach-road from London to Liverpool has perhaps the best claim to that title. The churches, the houses, the Guildhall, the almshouses,-all have an old-fashioned, last-century appearance, but are not old enough to be picturesque. A castle once stood in this town; but it was destroyed many centuries ago; and no vestiges of it now remain, except a portion of the mound on which it was built; the rest having been levelled into the moat for purposes of cultivation. The manufacture of hats is the largest carried on within the town; but this has lessened within the last few years; and other circumstances have tended to give to Newcastle the aspect of a declining town. Time was, when it was regarded as the metropolis of the Potteries; but Stoke has usurped this position. Railway proceedings have tended to deteriorate the town. Before the formation of the Grand Junction Railway, Newcastle was on the great route to Liverpool; but it was then placed in the position of a mere omnibus town in connection with one of the roadside stations; and since the opening of