330 Sir Boverton Redwood [June 7, 



trial developments in the manufacture of dyes, wliich after many- 

 years followed bis classic researches. 



In the same year, Faraday also published tlie results of his exami- 

 nation of caoutchouc, and showed that this substance is mainly a 

 compound of carbon and hydrogen. 



Eleven years later, Edmund Davy, a consin of Sir Humphry 

 Davy, discovered the gaseous hydrocarbon which we now know as 

 acetylene. The account of his discovery which he gave at the meet- 

 ing of the British Association in 183() was as follows : "Early in the 

 present year the author, in attempting to procure potassium, by 

 strongly heating a mixture of calcined tartar and charcoal in a large 

 iron bottle, obtained a black substance which readily decomposed 

 water and yielded a gas which, on examination, proved to be a new 

 compound of carbon and hydrogen." 



It is interesting to note the relation between these respective 

 researches of Faraday and Edmund Davy and the rival theories of 

 the organic and inorganic origin of petroleum, to which further refer- 

 ence will be made. 



As an illustration of unexpected issues of scientific investigation, 

 I may remark, though I must do so in carefully guarded terms, that 

 a hydrocarbon, largely employed in early low-temperature research 

 work in this Institution, is now being made use of by t!ie enemy in 

 one of the most abhorrent forms of modern offensive warfare. 



There are many obvious allusions to the occurrence and uses of 

 petroleum in the Old Testament scriptures. Thus, in the account 

 of the building of the Tower of Babel we are told that '• slime had 

 they for mortar," the word " slime " in our version being given as 

 " bitumen " in the Yulgate. Again, in Genesis xiv. 10, the Vale of 

 Siddim is described as " full of slime pits," and on this account it 

 has been suggested that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah 

 may have occurred through the sudden outburst of petroleum in this 

 region. This has led Mr. W. H. Dalton to remark that the destruc- 

 tion of these cities, and our recent conquests in Palestine, were 

 effected by the same agency, with the essential difference that in the 

 latter case the flow of the oil was under control. 



The Vale of Siddim, with its slime pits, is no more ; even its 

 precise position is a matter of doubt, but the pitch spring of the 

 Ionian island of Zante. described by Herodotus in 450 B.C., may still 

 be seen. 



Here is a photograph (Fig. 1) of this spring of petroleum taken 

 in 1890, whilst my guide was in the act of inserting an olive branch 

 into the spring, and withdrawing it dripping with the oil, the flow 

 being, apparently, as almndant as it was -2,300 years previously. I 

 may add that drilling for petroleum in the locality has not resulted 

 in obtaining any yield of commerciid importance. 



Long before the Ghristian era, the drilling of wells for natural 

 gas, with a view to its use as a source of heat in evaporating brine. 



