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“Tt may be accepted with implicit confidence as a} fact, 
that there are vast districts of country throughout the United 
States within which, by judicious exploration, an immense 
number of such fountains of natural gas may be developed ; 
furnishing a fuel which raises itself out of the mine, and 
which may be made to transport itself, up hill and down dale, 
to any point required ; independently of seasons and circum- 
stances, miners’ strikes and railroad monopolists to the 
contrary notwithstanding.” 
2. CHEMISTRY. 
Two prominent chemical points present themselves, one 
chiefly of scientific, and the other of practical interest; re- 
lating, the one to the mode of origin, and the other to the 
mode of purification, of the gas. To both I have given 
much thought, and to the latter much experiment and in- 
vention. ‘This latter, however, I shall not now enter upon. 
As to my views of the mode of formation of the gas that 
exists now in such enormous compression in these different 
strata; I ask first, What 7s this gas chemically? Always 
essentially, from whatever horizon obtained, it is marsh gas, 
that hydrocarbon of all others which contains the most 
hydrogen, and the least carbon; the compound which 
naturally and necessarily forms the final residue of the 
abstraction of carbon from organic matter by a powerful 
oxidising agent; since in nature we scarce find elementary 
hydrogen as such a residue. Now what oxidising agents are 
there, or rather, what have there been in all these rocks, that 
could effect such a combustion? I reply, omides of iron, 
now represented in these rocks by iron sulphides, showing 
the iron oxides to have passed through the forms of sulphates. 
IT again ask; What analogous action have we now going on 
everywhere on the present surface of the earth? The evolu- 
tion of marsh gas from the black mud of a stagnant pool, 
loaded with vegetable matter, and blackened by sulphide of 
iron, which is occupied in conveying the oxygen of the water 
to the carbon of the mud. Every boy who has thrust a 
