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



The various geological formations in which crude 

 petroleum is found in various parts of the world may be briefly 

 stated. Thus in the Baku district of southern Russia, where 

 probably the largest and most productive wells are situated, the 

 associated rocks are somewhat incoherent sandstones of recent 

 Tertiary age, so incohei-ent, in fact, that the oil which outflows 

 in immense quantities contains a. large percentage of sand which 

 has to l:>e separated after collecting the oil. In India, Burmah, 

 Assam, Boloochisian, Persia, Japan and China, oil is found in 

 workable quantity in rocks of the same general horizon or from 

 some portion of the Tertiary formations, wherever the con- 

 ditions are favourable to its occurrence. Of these an interest- 

 ing feature is seen in the oil wells of Belpochistan, ^vhere, ow- 

 ing to the disturbed and faulted character of thie strata, 

 attempts to obtain the minerals in paying quantities have 

 proved a failure. 



In the group of islands comprising Borneo, Java, Sumatra 

 and Timor, as well as in the Phillipines, the oil-bearing rocks 

 are also of Tertiary age, and this is likewise the case with the 

 deposits of jS'ew Zealand and of Australia. 



In the South American states it occurs in rocks of practical- 

 ly the same horizon, as well as in Mexico and in the islands of 

 Barbados and Trinidad; while along the west coast of United 

 States, from Texas on the south to Alaska on the north, as also in 

 territory bordering the east side of Eocky mountains, in oil- 

 fields of Colorado and in Alberta, the containing form'a- 

 tions range from the Cretaceous into the Tertiary. In Canada 

 on the Pacific coast no <til-\vells have yet been reported, but 

 traces of oil have re<'ently been found in connection with the 

 Tertiary sandstone and shale of one of the interior coal basins. 

 On the east slope of the mountains, however, borings have been 

 carried on for several years in connection Mith oil springs 

 which are supposed to issue from Cretaceous rocks, while the 

 great deposits of tar sands which occur along the Athabasca and 



