STEVENSON— INTERRELATIONS OF THE FOSSIL FUELS. 97 



dopplerite, for Friih saw clopplerite of sphagnum origin at the 

 junction of Hoch- and Rasenmoor, where the water was very 

 abundant. He objects very strongly to regarding the material ex- 

 tracted by caustic potash as the true dopplerite; he believed the 

 mineral to be an ulmin product ; the potash dissolves both ulmin 

 and humin products. Dopplerite, according to Friih, is most 

 abundant in the lower portions of a deposit, but the microscope 

 detects flakes of ulmin-like material throughout the mature peat. It 

 is well to recall here the fact observed by C. A. Davis in Michigan 

 and by Dachnowski in Ohio, that Sphagnum is indifferent to the 

 character of the water, limy constituents not interfering with its 

 growth. Equally, Rasenmoors do not require calcareous waters, 

 for the water of the Rhine and of the Aleuse is thoroughly fresh. 

 Kinahan, in 1861, referred to the tarry fluid wdiich trickled from 

 an Irish bog — evidently dopplerite. 



H. L. Fairchild in 1881 and Lewis in 1882 described a dopplerite- 

 like substance obtained near Scranton, Pennsylvania. Lewis's^*" 

 description is the more in detail. This substance is in swamp muck 

 at the bottom of 8 to 10 feet of peat and occurs in irregular veins. 

 It is black and jelly-like when fresh, but on exposure becomes 

 tougher and more elastic. Caustic potash dissolves it. Analyzed 

 by J. M. Stinson, it proved to contain: Carbon, 28.989; hydrogen, 

 5.172; nitrogen, 2.456; oxygen, 56.983; ash, 6.400. The formula 

 as determined from the analysis seemed to be CioH^sOir,. There is 

 little combined nitrogen as the quantity of ammonia is small 



Foster^*^ studied a substance wdiich appears to be very closely 

 allied to dopplerite. The deposit is in northwestern New Mexico 

 along a broad " wash," draining into the canyon of the Chaco River. 

 Its existence was indicated first by a Navajo Indian, who said that 

 wherever the Indians had sunk wells within an area, 10 miles long 

 and of considerable width, they had encountered this material. The 

 collector reported that normally it underlies clay and soil, but some- 

 times the clay is absent. At the first test pit, clay is absent and the 



140 H. C. Lewis, " On a New Substance Resembling Dopplerite, from a 

 Peat Bog at Scranton," Proc. Amer. Phil. Soc, Vol. XX., 1882, pp. 112-117. 



141 \Y Foster, " A Remarkable Carbonaceous Deposit near Putnam, New 

 Mexico," Econ. GcoL, Vol. VIII., 1913, pp. 360-368. 



