1SG8.] 453 [rcckhain- 



hundred niid twonty-i'our equivaloiits each oi" carbon and by- 

 droiien. 



The protein compounds of which animal tissues are com- 

 l)osed contain carbon and hydrogen in nearly equal proportions 

 and largely in excess of either of the other constituents. It 

 would be diflicult to devise any method by which they could 

 nntlergo decomposition, with exclusion of ox^-gen, Avithout pro- 

 ducing an hydrocarbon or a variety of such bodies, and it is 

 highly probable that they would contain nitrogen. When a 

 mass of animal matter, consisting not onl}^ of the muscular 

 tissue but of all the non-nitrogenous substances entering into 

 animal organisms, was thus subjected to decomposition submerged 

 in water, the product could not fail to be a nitro-hydrocarbon, 

 Avhich upon exposure to atmospheric oxygen would undergo 

 a second decomposition into a greater or less number of the 

 following named products, carbon, hydrocarbons, ammonia or 

 free nitrogen, carbonic acid and water. The petroleums of 

 Southern California, issuing primarily from Miocene shales, are 

 of precisely this unstable character. 



Although we have not that direct evidence of the formation 

 of all petroleum from animal reniains, that the carbonization of 

 wood during the historic period and its cellular structure fur- 

 nishes of the derivation of coal, we are not without positive proof 

 that such a decomposition is possible through the agency of natu- 

 ral causes. Solid bitumen has been repeatedly found filling the 

 cavities in the Lias of England, once filled with the gigantic ma- 

 rine lizards of that formation. " In some cases," says Dr. Hunt, 

 '' petroleum is found filling cavities in silurian limestones, as at 

 Riviere de la Rose (Montmorenci) where it flows in drops from 

 a fossil coral of the birds-eye limestone ; and at Pakenham where 

 it fills the cavities of the large orthoceratites in the Trenton.*" 

 In one locality in California, a shaft was sunk upon an oil spring 

 in the belt of oil shales. A reliable witness informed me that the 

 excavation passed for several feet through a mass of fossil bones 

 which were saturated with oil. The mass w^hen thrown out re- 

 tained the cellular structure of bone for several days, but finally 

 crumbled on exposure to the atmosphere. 



It may be urged that if petroleum was of animal origin it 



* Clicm. News, VI. 15. Ain. Jour. (2) XXX"\'. lOCi. A very large luniilier of 

 similar iii.stanees are ineutioiied b}' Dr. Hunt and Dr. J. S. Newbury, us occ-ur- 

 ling in tlie United States and Canada. 



