156 



THE GEOLOGIST. 



marlsj and thus both temporary and local action is shown. 

 Perhaps, therefore, a theory that the Cheshire fields of salt 

 were the result of volcanic action, pouring the aqueous men- 

 struum from which those beds were formed, into depressions 

 on the surface of the higher strata of the upper new red 

 sandstone ; and that the alternation of the strata of rock and 

 salt has arisen from periodical subsidencies, followed or ac- 

 companied by fresh discharges of the same aqueous men- 

 struum, — a theory embracing the most important points in 

 each of those to which allusion has been made, may be 

 thought to account for the position, in Cheshire, of the salt, 

 and its accompanying beds of rock and clay, and the litho- 

 logical character of the same, in a more simple manner than 

 can be done by reference to either of them alone. 



SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY OF LONDON. 



March 2nd and I6th, 1842. — These meetings were both 

 occupied with considerations on a paper, proposing " The 

 triune system of classification of Science with especial 

 reference, on these occasions, to zoology and botany. Al- 

 though these subjects are foreign to our work, we notice 

 them on account of their forming a portion of a series, in 

 which mineralogy is to hold an important place, with a 

 view to searching for a method of classification of mineral 

 substances more in accordance with the natural arrangement 

 of other subjects. At the close of the former of the papers 

 in question, Mr. Denton remarked, that he was greatly 

 pleased to find that this Society entertained the desire of 

 simplifying the arrangement of facts already investigated, 

 and proved through the medium of scientific inquiry, and 

 that if this " triune^' arrangement, was traceable throvgJiout 

 7iatitre, (for it has been clearly proved by Swainson, with 

 reference to zoology, and hinted at by Lindiey, with reference 



