254 C. PARKINSON ON THE DROITWICH 
D. W. Taylor, 1854: 
Chloriderof sodium 2.54.0) 2¢22 seer 21509°77 
Chloride of magnesium ............ 101°22 
Sulphate of' limes. ...n. 6. cate: 302°15 
Sulphate of soda). wie een 20k sito ee 319-50 
Silicatevof soda. 02 2h2 ic) ALR Sheree 1°36 
Traces of bromide of magnesium .... ~—.......... 
5 ‘do0dide ‘of sodium 1): \:/;3; 00-2. kity. Se ae 
5) protoxide: of iron(:4:4%) 2: 6k eee 
Salts'in Salli. 2 .ee eee 22234:00 
As far back as 1815 (vide Trans. Geol. Soc. ser. 1, vol. ii. p. 107) 
Mr. Horner gave an analysis with somewhat similar proportions. 
Dr. H. Swete informs me that his analysis, as County Analyst, 
agrees with those above given, except in unimportant details. 
The chemical action of the brine on most metals is very strong. 
A strong iron pipe corrodes to such anextent that the piping can be 
cut through with a knife like so much soap. Marble slabs gradually 
become pulverized by the brine, and all cements are eaten away. 
If mixed with ordinary water (3 of water to 1 of brine) and 
boiled in a copper vessel, it produces a precipitate, the water coming 
out a brilliant blue, while the vessel remains discoloured. 
No traces of organic life have been discovered in the Droitwich 
Keuper Marls, although the small Crustacean bivalve Hstheria 
minuta (Brown) belongs to the uppermost Keuper sandstones * and 
has been found in Worcestershire ; the same fossil occurs in the Mus- 
chelkalk of the continent f, and probably existed in the Keuper-Marl 
period. Four Saurians are also named by Sir Charles Lyell as Upper 
Keuper fossils. The Hyperodapedon, discovered near Warwick, in 
Devon, in Central Asia, and South Africa, in rocks of the Triassic 
period (the Warwick and Devon rocks being of Keuper age), has 
been referred by Prof. Huxley to a terrestrial reptile closely allied 
to the New-Zealand living Sphenodont. At the base of the Cheshire 
rock-salts and Marls we find the “‘ waterstones,” both ripple-marked 
and having the footprints of reptiles. I do not know whether the 
‘‘ waterstones ” have been observed in Worcestershire; but as the 
Cheshire and South Midland Saliferous Marls must have been one 
before the upheaval of the Permian and Bunter ridges across the 
country, the reptilian footprints and ripple-marks, taken with the 
reptiles of the uppermost Keuper Sandstones, afford us some slight 
indication of the fauna of that period and the conditions under 
which the animals lived. The ripple-marks give evidence, I suppose, 
of a tidal waste, occasionally covered by the sea-water, when the 
impressions or footprints of reptiles have been covered with mud 
and preserved to us in the Cheshire waterstones. The existence 
of reptiles would seem to point to some considerable tracts of land 
during the Upper Keuper period (the sandstones of Upper Keuper 
* Lyell, ‘ Elements of Geol.’ p. 358. = t Ibid. p. 369. _—{ Ibid. p, 358. 
