H0 NATURAL SCIENCE [August 



into a cavity. An inflammable gas immediately ascended, which got 

 ignited by bhe lights of the workmen. Two men were immediately 

 killed, and as an eye-witness says, the gas burned slowly up the 

 well till it came near the top, when coming in contact with the 

 miter air, it burst out into a sheet of flame, some 20 feet high. It 

 then slowly burned itself out. The water in the well was useless, 

 and Mr Nicholls had the well tilled up. 



This seems to have been an instance of an inflammable gas 

 occurring in association with strata containing a rock-oil, the 

 gas itself accumulating in a cavity, or what is called by the 

 Americans a ' pocket.' It serves to show that it is unwise for 

 well-sinkers to use artificial lights at the bottom of a well when 

 boring for water, except perhaps in properly constructed mining- 

 lamps. 



Another somewhat interesting occurrence took place near Tice- 

 hurst Road, Sussex, about six or seven years ago. There is a certain 

 low-lying field, called the ' Bogs Brook,' close to the Ticehurst Road 

 Station of the South-Eastern Railway. It is a marshy spot, and 

 sometimes large bubbles of inflammable gas continuously rise and 

 break on the surface of the pools. One Sunday in a particularly 

 dry summer when the bog was dried up, some boys were about to 

 enjoy a clandestine smoke of tobacco, when a match thrown down 

 suddenly ignited something believed to be inflammable gas. The 

 boys ran away, and the whole field was soon a mass of flame ; the 

 peat of the bog also took fire. I am told that the spot, which is in 

 view of the railway, was visited by thousands of people at the time ; 

 it burned for a week or more, when some heavy rains soaked the 

 land and put out the fire. 



These subjects, although interesting, have but slight interest as 

 compared with the more important occurrences of inflammable gas 

 coming from artesian borings, with a continuous flow during months 

 and years, and existing under a high degree of pressure. Inflam- 

 mable gas is mentioned by Mr Henry Willett, F.G.S., in his account 

 of the famous Sub-Wealden boring at Netherfield in 1875, as occur- 

 ring in the Purbeck Strata, and at a short distance above certain 

 strata in the upper Kimmeridge Clays, recorded to be very rich 

 in petroleum. This seems to be the first record we have of a class 

 of gas which has now again been met with in East Sussex. Of 

 course I do not now speak of gases emanating from petroleum at 

 high temperatures, but of certain gases usually found in a free state 

 in association with petroleum, and perhaps, therefore, owing their 

 origin to some common causes and conditions. 



An inflammable gas was met with in a boring made by Messrs 



'■land & Sutcliffe (the celebrated hydraulic engineers) at the 

 Heathfield Eotel, Waldron, Sussex, in rocks at a. horizon very little 



