1865.] ]^S9 [Lesley, 



2. A letter from Mr. U. C. Burnap, Brooklyn, Nov. 27th, 1865 : 

 "About a dozen wells are in progress on Paint Creek, some of them 

 down 900 feet; but as yet no oil has been struck, except small veins 

 near the surface. Operations are still going on, and at least two of 

 the wells will be put down to 1500 feet. New wells are being com- 

 menced near the Oil Springs, though the opinion seems to be gain- 

 ing ground that the deposits of oil are ahove the water-level and that 

 no oil will be found except the heavy oil which leaks through the XII 

 series. All the Sandy Valley has been very thoroughly prospected 

 from a point seven miles below Louisa to Paintville. Not less than 

 30 wells are now going down, many of which are below GOO feet. 



It is said that the operations in Cumberland County have been 

 successful, and that several large wells have been struck ; but the 

 stories are rather apocryphal. 



My last trip extended up 130 miles above Paintville to the Ten- 

 nessee line. All through the Valley the same exhibitions of surface 

 oil are found, but no wells are going down above the mouth of Paint. 



Every well down 500 feet is producing salt water in abundance." 



Mr. Lesley remarked upon the contents of these letters that they 

 went to confirm his published views of the source of the surface oil 

 deposits of the Valleys of the Sandy in Eastern Kentucky. There 

 is an actual horizon of oil at the base of the coal measures. The 

 plants of the great conglomerate (XII) have been converted into thick 

 oil, and reach the surface by a horizontal drainage above water-level, 

 over the water-bearing shales of the False or Lower Coal Measures. 

 The next horizon of oil is undoubtedly far down in the Devonian, 

 near or even below the base of the Knobstone Formation of Kentucky. 



Dr. Newberry read a paper at the meeting of the National Acade- 

 my, held in August last at Northampton, Mass., in which he asserted 

 that the great flows of oil which took place, years ago, in Southern 

 Middle Kentucky, came from the Loioer Silurian Limestones. The 

 same horizon has yielded oil in limited quantities back of Chicago in 

 Illinois. Mr. Lesley learned, during a recent visit to Montreal, that 

 the Canadian Geological Survey had found the Lower Silurian Lime- 

 stones of the Manatoulin Islands in Lake Huron, oil bearing. Mr. 

 Lesley lately saw, himself, small quantities of petroleum trickling 

 from Upper Silurian Limestones at Cape Gaspe, the easternmost 

 point of Canada East, the surfaces of the limestone bed being almost 

 covered with the vestiges of cocktail fucoids, coralloids, bivalves, and 

 trilobites. 



