326 Miscellaneous, 



a poor man comes and asks me for a thaler, I gifs him a tausend" 

 — a generosity to which his newly found affluence will doubtless 

 prove a complete antidote. 



A few days later, one of our citizens, who was there, asked him 

 in mere curiosity if he would sell the well for $15,000, but he 

 was not to be dazzled by any such trifling sum, and said that four 

 times that amount was the least offer worth considering. When 

 it is remembered that his well is daily paying over |150 profit, 

 his valuation will scarcely seem extravagant. 



These two are the only wells in which pumps have as yet been 

 placed, but at least fifty others have been bored in their vicinity 

 in which oil has been found in considerable quantity — sometimes 

 more than five barrels having been raised in the sand pump, and 

 saved during the process of sinking the auger fifty feet — a fact 

 which certainly augurs well for the richness of the district. 



This oil is dark, thick, tarry looking stuff", very much like that 

 from the Titusville wells, but has almost no unpleasant odour, and 

 has proved on trial to be readily refined, and to be fully equal 

 both as a lubricator and illuminator to the best samples from 

 Pennsylvania. It is perhaps yet too early to make a just compari- 

 son between the Mecca and Titusville oil regions,*as the former 

 is not yet fully explored, nor has the productiveness or perman- 

 ance of its oil springs been fairly tested. The quality of the oil is 

 however, not inferior, and the present indications of its quantity 

 are quite as promising as they were on Oil Creek, at a similar pe- 

 riod in the developement of the wealth of that region. 



In one respect the proprietors of the wells in Mecca have a de- 

 cided advantage over those of Pennsylvania — in the greater ac- 

 cessibility of their oil. The most copious flow has been found 

 within fifty feet of the surface, and the rock is so easily penetrat- 

 ed that a well may generally be sunk to that depth within a week 

 and at a cost of fifty dollars. To fit it for the reception of a pump 

 something more is necessary, but the entire expense is compara- 

 tively trifling. — Cleaveland Paper, 



REVIEWS AND NOTICES OF BOOKS. 



Report of the Geological Survey of Canada for the year 1858. 



We should have noticed this Report some time ago, but for 



a press of otherjmatter ; and now we can but give a summary of its 



