NOTES AND QUERIES. 



399 



dep osits of rock-salt occur in the neighbourhood of Northwich, lying in patches 

 along the valley of the River Weaver, in the Triassic formation. There are 

 two beds — the upper one is reached at about 45 yards, and the lower at 80 

 yards from the surface. The brine or salt-springs which often issue from those 

 deposits contain from three and a half to six and a half per cent, of salt, the 

 saline property being undoubtedly derived from the solid masses of salt by sub- 

 terranean waters. 



A question naturally arises as to the origin of the saline spring at Dukinfield. 

 Northwich is at least twenty-five miles distant from it, even as the crow flies. 

 Dukinfield stands upon the Lower New Red Sandstone (Permian), which in 

 that locality appears to be developed in an extraordinary degree as to its depth. 

 At Macclesfield, which is distant about sixteen miles from Dukinfield, and is 

 located on, or contiguous with the same coal-field — the mineral is reached at 

 sixty yards below the surface. 



Now the nearest point or boundary of the true saliferous strata (Keuper) of 

 this county does not lie less than twenty miles from Dukinfield ; and a solution 

 of the problem may probably be found in the following suggestions : — 



First, that water containing chloride of sodium in solution might possibly 

 find its way from the above named strata to the newly discovered outlet in the 

 Dukinfield mine, — for it is of sufficient depth to admit that possibility and 

 even to drain the Trias in that part of Cheshire provided there were sufficient 

 capacity or outlet for such drainage. — Again, there may be some adventitious 

 deposits of saliferous shales, marls, or rock-salt, incorporated at a shorter dis- 

 tance than the Northwith rock-salt in the New Red strata, the solution of 

 which by drainage reaches the pit. — Or, there may exist by a fortuitous circum- 

 stance or otherwise, deposits of rock-salt saliferous shales or marls in the 

 snperincumbent coal-bearing strata of the mine. — This latter, perhaps, is 

 the most reasonable proposition. The question, however, is at present a 

 purely theoretical, altnough a very interesting one. At all events the fact of a 

 " Salt Spring in a Coal Mine" may be considered a geological phenomenon. — 

 J. D. Sainter. Macclesfield. 



REVIEWS. 



Memoir of Edward Forbes, F.R.S., late Regius Professor of Natural History in 

 the University of Edinburgh. By George Wilson, M.D., E.R.S.E. (late 

 Regius Professor of Technology at Edinburgh), and Archibald Geikie, 

 E.R.S.E., E.G.S. of the Geological Survey. Macmillan and Co., London 

 and Cambridge; Edmonston and Douglas, Edinburgh, 1861. 



Painful it is indeed to review the life of one passed away into the regions 

 of Euturity whom we had wished to number long amongst our valued friends. 

 To us the name of Edward Eorbes will be ever dear as that of one of our 

 earliest and kindest encouragers in the paths of science, while by the world 

 that name will ever be repeated with respect in memory of the genius and 

 talent he brought to bear on the sciences of geology and natural history. The 

 book before us has more than double interest. Not only is its subject matter 

 of high interest as the personal history of a master mind, and that interest 

 enhanced by the memoir being commenced by another eminent man of 

 science, like Eorbes, beloved for his amiable qualities and respected for his 



