186 Scient'ijic Intelligence. — Geology. 



from Lake Erie ; a small but rapid stream called the Canada- 

 way passes through it, and, after turning several miles, dis- 

 charges itself into the lake below ; near the mouth is a small 

 harbour with a light-house. While removing an old mill, which 

 stood partly over this stream in Fredonia, three years since, 

 some bubbles were observed to break frequently from the wa- 

 ter, and on trial were found to be inflammable. A company 

 was formed, and a hole, an inch and a half in diameter, being 

 bored through the rock, a soft fetid limestone, the gas left its 

 natural channel, and ascended through this. A gasometer was 

 then constructed, with a small house for its protection, and the 

 pipes being laid, the gas is conveyed through the whole village. 

 One hundred lights are fed from it ; more or less at an expense 

 of one dollar and a-half yearly for each. The flame is large, 

 but not so strong or brilliant as that from gas in our cities ; it 

 is, however, in high favour with the inhabitants. The gaso- 

 meter, on measurement, collected 80 cubic feet in 12 hours du- 

 ring the day ; but the man who has charge of it told me, that 

 more might be procured with a larger apparatus. About a 

 mile from the village, and in the same stream, it comes up in 

 quantities four or five times as great. The contractor for the light- 

 house purchased the right to it, and laid pipes to the lake, but 

 found it impossible to make it descend, the difference in ele- 

 vation being very great. It preferred its old natural channels, 

 and bubbled up beyond the reach of his gasometer. Tiie gas is 

 carburetted hydrogen, and is supposed to come from beds of 

 bituminous coal. The only rock visible, however, both here and 

 to a great extent on both sides, along the southern shore of the 

 lake, is fetid limestone. 



8. Diluvial Furrotcs and Scratches. — In a late number of 

 the American Journal of' Science^ there is a notice of informa- 

 tion laid before the New York Lyceum, relative to the worn 

 appearance of rocks in situ, with parallel scratches (such as 

 heavy harrows might make in soft clay), and the writer speaks 

 of them as being in a south-easterly direction. Appearances 

 precisely similar occurred in excavating the Erie Canal above 

 Lockport, on hard limestone, with a direction of the lines about 

 north 15° east. Similar marks were found on uncovering hard 

 sandstone in the Eric Canal, not far from Brockport, and nearly 



