COxVL-OIL IN WEST VIEGINIA. 525 



weeds, the chemistry aud physiology of vegetation, and all the myriad opera- 

 tions that are daily occurring around him, will become like so many volumes of 

 a mighty library teeming with mysteries, but each of which he is prepared to 

 peruse, and, in measure, to understand. 



It has been laid to the charge of science that in its deductions it is often at 

 war with itself, and such it must be, because it is progressive. It is in fact un- 

 developed, but struggling towards a more perfect stage. It has, perhaps, 

 promised more than it has performed, but much more has been expected of it 

 than should have been promised. It is much to have dissipated into "thin air " 

 the old, erroneous notions in agriculture, and to have placed us upon the track 

 of rational investigation. Practical knowledge of our calling is of prime im- 

 portance ; observation and experience must ever be the foundations on which to 

 build the superstructure of science, and we are convinced that it is not by theo- 

 retical instruction in the halls of any college that agriculture is to advance, or 

 that the present generation of fanners is to be rendered an improvement on the 

 last, if they do not add to that clearer insight into the principles of their art 

 which it is the mission of science to teach, the industry and thrift, the business 

 capacity and judgment of their fathers, and combine therewith, through self- 

 instruction, a higher and truer culture of mind and heart. 



The earnest student of the very interesting branch of inquiry, a very meagre 

 sketch of which we have attempted in the foregoing pages, will attentively 

 peruse the following popular works, which should be found in the library of 

 every inquiring farmer, and be studied by their sons and daughters throughout 

 the land : Mary Somerville's Physical Geography, Guyot's "Earth and Man," 

 Humboldt's Aspects of Nature, Schould's Earth Plants and Man, aud Boussiu- 

 gault's Rural Economy. 



A popular geographical botany, with a preface by Dr. Danberry, will be 

 found very instructive, but for more minute and extended information he will 

 consult Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography, volume I, pages 236-254, and 

 volume II, pages 406-425 ; Balfour's Text-Book of Botany ; Dr. Darlington's 

 Agricultural Botany ; De Candolle's Geographical Botany ; Johnston's Physi- 

 cal Atlas; Agassiz's Lake Superior ; Dr. Cooper on the Distribution of the 

 Forest Trees in North America, in the Patent Office Report (Agricultural) for 

 ] 860, and Smithsonian Report for 1858 ; Blodget's Agricultural Climatology 

 of the United States, in Patent Office Report (Agricultural) for 1853 ; Russell's 

 Lectures on Meteorology, in Smithsonian Report, 1854; Blodget's Climatology 

 of the United States ; and various excellent articles by Dr. Joseph Henry, of 

 the Smithsonian, in the valuable reports of that institution for 1855 and 1856, and 

 in the Patent Office Reports (agricultural division) for 1856, 1857, 1858, and 1859. 



COAL-OIL IN WEST VIRGINIA. 



BY C. H. SHATTUCK, PARKERSBURG, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Animal oils, rushes, resinous knots, even nutshells, and other substances 

 have been used at different times as light-producers. 



It is not necessary, hoAvever, in this article to dwell on obsolete illuminations 

 Except as they may incidentally exhibit to better advantage the important po- 

 sition which petroleum, as a light-producer, occupies before the world. 



The large quantities of this substance now consumed invest every place in 

 which it is found with an importance corresponding to the amount produced. 

 Even a cursory examination of this subject will excite no little wonder at the 

 great productiveness of some of the oil regions of this country ; and it will also 

 Btiike the observer with surprise when he remembers the tardiness with which 



