NOTES AND QUERIES. 
399 
deposits of rock-salt occur in the neighbourhood of Northmch, 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 sis. 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 newlv 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 Rea 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 tlie 
snperincumbent coal-bearing strata of the mine. — This latter, perhaps, is 
the most reasonable proposition. The question, however, is at present a 
purely tlieoretical, 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. Saintee. Macclesfield. 
REVIEWS. 
Memoir of Edward Forbes, F.R.S., late Regius Professor of Natural History in 
the University of Edinburgh. By George Wiison, M.D., F.R.S.E. (late 
Regius Professor of Technology at Edinburgh), and Archibald Geikie, 
P.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 Futurity whom we had wished to number long amongst our valued friends. 
To us the name of Edward Forbes 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 w^ill 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 Forbes, beloved for his amiable qualities and respected for his 
