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ter is thick and almost dry it does not entirely settle. So what is kept 

 is the peat underlaid by clay and resting on whatever soil or rock 

 is common in the country where the peat occurs. And when this 

 clay is examined by means of the microscope it is foud to be mainly 

 made up of the remains of Bacillaria, the Diatomaceae or Diatoms 

 of the infusorial hunter or infusoria in short. The shells of Bacilla- 

 ria are those are common in fresh water when growing in stream or 

 lakes or large masses of water in the land, brackish water when 

 growing along shore where the fresh water is contamined with the 

 salt water of the ocean, or marine of saltwater where growing in 

 the open water of the ocean. The peat becomes hardened by con- 

 traction and thus passes through the stages of brown coal and so 

 on to antharacite. These last stages being rich in carbon with very 

 small quantity of hydrogen and no oxygen. This passes fìnaly into 

 a mass of pure carbon, in short plumbago, the ordinary black lead 

 as it is called. But the wood that occurs in the coal in the shape 

 of trees or their branches, and often is upwright in the position as 

 the trees ordinarily grew, is not coal truly itself, but is found 

 scarcely, and at the bottom on the clay, where it grew before the 

 peat was formed. So that there results a layer of clay having logs 

 of wood, or standing stumps of trees, sometimes fifteen feet long, 

 on the top of which is coal or peat. This is the manner in which 

 coal is formed. 



Then where does the petroleum, or rock oil as it is called, come 

 from ? It is fluid, or semi fluid, with no fossils in it to use as ar- 

 guments to judge from. The origin of petroleum has occupied the 

 minds of numerous observers and the results set down in various 

 publications. Let us see what are the veiws of the leading geologists 

 on the subject. Le Conte on the Pacific coast and Newberry who 

 is familiar with the oils of Ohio and Pennsylvania. The last of whom 

 1 have conversed with on the subject. 



First Le Conte says that the amount of oil-bearing sfrata in 

 the Uniteci States in practically inexaustiblle. And this too when it 

 is remembered that it is found through ali strata, Silurian and Ter- 

 tiary. Remember this is also when compared with the Russian oil 

 fields which are much larger than those ol the United States. 



It seems as if peat, muck, petroleum, asphaltum and even coal, 



