13G PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



and are, therefore, better adapted for the manufacture of paraffin 



products. 



There are other shales in our coal measures which seem to have 

 received their oil, or hydro-carbon, from a mixture of both vege- 

 table and animal remains, the oil in these cases being of a mixed 

 quality. To this class belongs the Kiltongue mussel-band shale, 

 which is being worked in several localities for the purpose of 

 distillation. This bed is of a brownish-black colour, hke some of 

 the vegetable oil shales, but contains, in one layer, a gTeat abund- 

 ance of bivalve moUusca belonging to the genus Anthracosia. I 

 think there can be little doubt but that these shell-fish have 

 yielded, during their decay, a considerable amount of the oil with 

 which this bed is now impregnated. 



The brown shales found in some parts of our coal measures, as 

 well as some brown and black sandstones containing hydro -carbon, 

 but with few traces of organic remains, incline me to the behef 

 that they may, in many cases, have received their oil by absorp- 

 tion of the vegetable ingredients driven off by heat, or some other 

 chemical agent, from beds of bituminous coal strata that may once 

 have existed in their neighbourhood. The brown sandstone from 

 one of the Cadder pits near Glasgow, of which I exhibit speci- 

 mens, has all the appearance of having received the oil which it 

 is seen to contain by the process of distillation, the oily particles 

 lodging in the cold porous rocks, in their passage through the 

 strata. As examples of this slow process of distillation still going 

 on, in some of the coal strata, from the effects of internal heat, I 

 have only to refer to the American oil-wells, and to the con- 

 tinuous escape of inflammable gases in the deeper mmes or pits of 

 our own country. 



In Scotland, oil shales yielding from twenty to seventy gallons 

 of crude oil to the ton occur in nearly all tlie various coal basins, 

 and, as the search for them goes on, we may expect to hear of 

 many valuable beds being discovered, because that in many tracts 

 of country which may have been formerly explored for coal and 

 ironstone, these entomostracan and other broAvn shales were not 

 likely to be much noticed before the discovery of their oil-yielding 

 qualities. 



As the work of research goes on, I hope that our chemists may 

 yet discover a means of utilising, to a greater extent, the heavier 

 hydro-carbon with Avhich many of these shales are charged, so 



