110 THE CANADIAN NATURALIST. [March 



Sciences for November 23, 1868. The gases examined were 

 from five localities. 



1. The so-called Burning spring, just above the falls of Niagara, 

 where an inflammable gas issues in considerable quantity from a 

 spring of slightly sulphuretted water which rises from the strata 

 of the Medina formation, here overlaid by a few feet of clay. 

 This gas consists of marsh gas, with traces of carbonic acid, 

 nitrogen and oxygen, the latter two being in all cases probably 

 accidental impurities arising from imperfections in the apparatus 

 used in collection. 



2. Petrolia, Enniskillen, Ontario; the gas was collected from 

 an intermittent oil-well, where petroleum had been reached five 

 days previously, at a depth of 377 feet in the Hamilton formation. 

 Its composition corresponded to a mixture of about equal parts 

 of marsh gas, C H^ and hydrid of ethyl, C2 H^. 



3. Fredonia, New York. This town on the shore of Lake 

 Erie, with a population of 3,000 souls, has been for many years 

 lighted with the g'ls which issues from a boring about eighty feet 

 deep in the Genesee slates, which occur at the summit of the 

 Hamilton formation. The gas is not accompanied by petroleum, 

 and appears to be like the last, a mixture in nearly equal propor- 

 tions of the hydrids of methyl and ethyl. 



4. J ioneer Run, Venango county, Pennsylvania. This gas, 

 from an oil-well about 600 feet deep in the sandstone of the 

 Chemung formation, was more carburetted than the preceding 

 and had nearly the composition of hydrid of propyl C3 Hg. A 

 fractional analysis by means of alcohol, which dissolves more 

 readily the more highly carburetted compounds of the series, showed 

 however that this gas was a mixture, consisting in part of hydrid of 

 butyl, Ci Hjo) besides a portion of hydrid of methyl, and the two 

 intermediate bodies of the series. 



5. Roger's Gulch, Wirtz county, West Virginia. The gas in 

 this locality was from a flowing oil-well 320 feet deep in the carboni- 

 ferous conglomerate, and consisted of hydride of methyl with an 

 admixture of 15.86 per cent of carbonic acid gas. 



Careful examinations showed the absence from all of these 

 gases of acetylene, C, Hj, of olefiant gas, C^ H^, and its homo- 

 logues, as well as of oxyd of carbon and free hydrogen. T. S. H. 



Spontaneous Ignition. — " The spontaneous ignition of 

 pyrotechnical compositions made with chlorate of potash is indeed 



