Saccharoid. Having the texture of loaf sugar.
Saliferous system. The new red sandstone system, so called from the salt with which it is associated in parts of England.
Saurian (reptilian). Any animal of the lizard tribe, and many extinct reptiles only distantly allied to these.
Sauroids. Marine fishes resembling lizards.
Salmonoides. Resembling the salmon.
Schist. A name often used as synonymous with slate, but more commonly, and very conveniently, limited to those rocks which do not admit of indefinite splitting, like slate, but are only capable of a less perfect separation into layers or laminæ. Of this kind are gneiss, mica-schist, &c., often more or less crystalline.
Scirpus (in Botany). A rush.
Scoriæ. The name given to volcanic ashes. The word means any kind of cinders, but its scientific use is thus limited.
Shale. An indurated clay, less fissile than schist, but splitting with tolerable facility in plates parallel to each other, and to the original planes of bedding.
Shell marl. A deposit of clay, peat, and silt, mixed with shells, which collects at the bottom of fresh-water lakes.