HARD YVICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



THE STOEY OF A PIECE OF BOCK-SALT. 



By J. E. TAYLOR, E.G.S., Etc. 



N many respects 

 I differ from my 

 geological asso- 

 ciates, although 

 my story, like 

 theirs, will help to 

 fill up the great 

 lapse of time de- 

 manded by the antiquity of 

 the globe. My origin was 

 perfectly natural, and not of 

 that semi-miraculous nature 

 which some people have ima- 

 gined. But truth is stranger 

 than fiction, as my own case 

 well exemplifies. 



As a mineral I may lay 

 claim to be almost as well 

 known as my neighbours the 

 pieces of coal and chalk. Geo- 

 logically speaking, I am not 

 limited to any particular formation or epoch, 

 although I am about to speak of my experiences of 

 that period which has been called " saliferous," or 

 " salt-bearing," on account of the larger quantities 

 of rock-salt to be obtained from it. But in almost 

 the same mineral form I am found in other deposits, 

 from the Silurian up to the Tertiary. In England, 

 however, it is in that formation known as the " New 

 Red Sandstone," or "Trias," that I occur most 

 considerably. Iu Cheshire my presence is indicated 

 by natural brine-springs, by the disfigured surface 

 of the earth near the salt-mines, and by the dark, 

 thick clouds of smoke which stretch across the 

 heavens. 



But before I proceed to describe, as well as I am 

 able, the agencies which were at work elaborating me 

 into the natural condition in which I am now found, 

 or to give you my faint recollections of the physical 

 geography of the period, and the animals and plants 

 which lived — let me borrow a few general remarks 

 from books, as to the classification of those rocks to 

 No 74. 



which I here belong. Their modern name of 

 " Trias " is derived from the tri-partite division into 

 which they are separable. These go by the name 

 of " Bunter," " Muschelkalk " (a German name for 

 " shelly limestone "), and the "Keuper" beds. The 

 former prevail largely in Lancashire, Cheshire, 

 Shropshire, Warwickshire, &c, and are noted for 

 their deep red colour, as well as for their thick beds of 

 hardened gravels, or conglomerates of liver-coloured 

 quartz. These indicate rough action in the seas 

 where they were deposited, and the much-worn, 

 rounded pebbles tell an equally plain story of the 

 wear-and-tcar to which they have been subjected 

 since they existed as angular fragments of rocks. 

 But throughout the whole of this series, you look 

 almost in vain for any fossils. The coarse conditions 

 uuder which the beds were formed were antago- 

 nistic to the preservation of any organic remains. 



Towards the conclusion of this period, in Germany 

 there existed a tolerably deep sea. The waters were 

 pure and free from mechanical sediment ; and here 

 the corals and encrinites found all the fitting cir- 

 cumstances for their luxuriant growth and pro- 

 creation. The sea-bottom was alive with the latter ; 

 one particular form, whose elegance has given to it 

 the name of the "Lily encrinite," being peculiar to 

 this particular member of the rock series. The 

 coral reefs increased in the shallower places, whilst 

 amid all these swam great fishes, whose teeth pro- 

 claimed their reptilian affinities, or still huger marine, 

 reptiles. Some of the latter had their teeth especially 

 formed for crushing the shell-fish on which they fed, 

 and which swarmed along the sea-bottom in count- 

 less thousands. Among these you may detect forms 

 which belong to the Palaeozoic as well as to the 

 Mesozoic epoch— forms which geologists not long 

 ago imagined were limited entirely and separately to 

 one or the other of these two great divisions of time. 



It is true the bed containing this admixture of 

 Old World forms is slightly younger than those I am 

 more particularly dwelling upon. But I could not 

 forbear drawing the attention of my readers to this 



c 



