THE OIL-FIELDS OF EASTERN CANADA. — ELLS. 599 



ailments and commanded quite a large price, the material being- 

 obtained from the natnral springs which are found in western 

 Ontario and southern New York or Pennsylvania adjacent to 

 the south. 



Petroleum or rock-oil is in fact a substance of almost 

 world-wide occurrence, it has been found in nearly every 

 country in Europe and Asia; in some of the isla'nds of the 

 Pacilic and Indian oceans; in isew Zealand and ^iustralia, and 

 in Xorth and ^South America. It is especially abundant in the 

 United States and in Canada, occurring in many places from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacilic. it has been asserted by some 

 authority that i'a its distribution it is only surpassed by water 

 itself, but whether this statement can be maintained or not, it 

 may safely be said that petroleum in some form is one of the 

 most widely known of mineral substances to-day. 



Its wide range in distribution over the earth's surface is 

 only equalled by its extended geological occurrence, since in 

 some one of its many forms it has been found in most of the 

 formations or systems from the earliest Laurentian to the latest 

 Tertiary. The result of the study of this material within the 

 last thirty years has been to do away very largely with the old 

 theory that rock-oil was practically confined to rocks of Devo- 

 nian and Upper Silurian horizons. In face, some of the largest 

 known deposits at the present day are found in the newest rock- 

 formations, while other very large oil-fields have their location 

 in rocks of Trenton age. In so far as the geological horizons 

 are concer'ned therefore, it would seem in the present state of 

 our knowledge, to be a difiicult matter to predicate just where 

 petroleum or some one of its related substances may or may not 

 be found. A safer test as regards deposits capable of economic 

 development would appear to be connected with the geological 

 conditions which prevail in the special field to be exploited. 



Petroleum, in the form of crude oil, is doubtless one of the 

 most important of the bituminous compounds. Several other var- 



