246 Notes on Petroleum 



quantities of oil, after which the supply diminished in both the 

 old and new springs, so that it is now less than at the first set' 

 tleraent of the country. Notwithstanding its general distribution 

 throughout a considerable region in the adjacent portions of New 

 York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, it is only in a few districts that it 

 has been found in quantities sufficient to be wrought with profit. 

 The wells of Mecca in Trumbull Co., Ohio, have been sunk from 

 30 to 200 feet in a sandstone which is saturated with oil ; of 200 

 wells which have been bored, according to Dr. Newberry, a dozen 

 or more are successfully wrought, and yield from five to twenty 

 barrels a day. The wells of Titusville on Oil Creek, Pennsylva- 

 nia, vary in depth from '70 to 300 feet, and the petroleum is met 

 with throughout. The oil from difi"erent localities varies con- 

 siderably in color and thickness, and in its specific gravity, 

 which ranges from 28° to 40° Baume, (from -890 to -830.) 



The valley of the Little Kenawha in Virginia, which is to be 

 looked upon as as an extension of the same oil-bearing region, 

 contains petroleum springs, which so long ago as 1836, according 

 to Dr. Hildreth, yielded from fifty to a hundred barrels yearly. 

 It here rises through the carboniferous strata, and as elsewhere is 

 accompanied by great quantities of inflammable gas. 



The black inflammable shales of the Devonian series in western 

 Canada which were formerly referred to the Hamilton group, and 

 are now considered to belong to the base of the overlying Portage 

 and Chemung, appear at Kettle Point on Lake Huron and in 

 portions of the region southward to Lake Erie, but the oil wells 

 sunk in Enniskillen show that the source of the oil is really below 

 the horizon of these shales, inasmuch as the underlying argilla- 

 ceous shales and limestones of the Hamilton group are there 

 found near the surface, and have been penetrated 120 feet, at 

 which depth oil is still met with, leaving but little doubt that it 

 is derived from the limestones beneath, which both in New 

 York, and in Canada are impregnated with petroleum. A some- 

 what slaty brownish-black bituminous dolomite belonging to the 

 Corniferous limestone from Pine Creek near Alma, in Kincar- 

 dine, gave me not less than 12.8 per cent, of bitumen, fusible and 

 readily soluble in benzole, and another from the Grand Mani- 

 toulin Island, which was a brown crystalline dolomite, yielded 

 from 7.4 to 8.8 per cent, of similar bitumen. The solid form of 

 this bitumen at the outcrop of the rocks, is probably due to the 

 action of the air. 



