Related Geological Conditions 51 



able and best qualities as flagstones, are derived from an 

 admixture of this bitumen with finely laminated siliceous, 

 calcareous and argillaceous particles, the whole forming 

 a natural cement more impervious to moisture than any 

 stone with which I am acquainted." He then subjoins 

 analyses and valuable observations on the nature of the 

 rocks. 



Again in 1829 Murchison, in noting the abundance of 

 fossil fishes in the oil shales of Seefeld in the Tyrol {28: 

 139) suggested "the probability of so many fishes having 

 materiallv cooperated in bituminization of the schist." This 

 view has been repeatedly seconded since. 



But at the present day many fishes like the salmon and 

 barramunda of freshwaters, also the sardine, anchovy and 

 specially the menhaden (pogie or mossbunker)of saltwaters 

 are rich in oils. Our knowledge of the last fish is probably 

 most detailed and exact, thanks to the studies of Brown 

 Goode (2^:180). He has shown that a gallon of oil is 

 yielded by 100 to 250 animals, according to the lean or 

 fat state of these at different periods of the year. Each 

 animal is on the average 12 inches long, weighs 11 ozs. 

 and attains full size in about four years. As many as 

 15,000,000 of them have been taken in a limited area 

 by one company in a season. So were one gallon of oil 

 yielded by 150 fish, the above season's catch would repre- 

 sent 100,000 gallons of oil. 



But more striking is an estimate by Goode, who reckons 

 "the total number destroyed annually on our coast by pre- 

 daceous animals at a million of millions," and again he 

 gives {2g: 109) "three thousand.millions of millions (3,000- 

 000,000,000,000,000)." Now it seems a conservative esti- 

 mate if we consider that the closely jumbled together teeth, 

 bones, and fin-spines of many Silurian, Devonian, and more 

 recent bone-beds, that cover thousands of square miles of 

 area in many cases, represent an even greater and more 

 widespread destruction of fish-life than that wrought within 

 a year by predaceous animals for the menhaden. If then 

 we accept that a gallon of oil was yielded by 200 fish, the 

 yield would represent five quadrillions of gallons of oil. 



