142 MINERALS AND GEOLOGY 



to the enormous quantities of this substance occurring in so many 

 different parts of the earth ; to the unceasing flow of vast numbers 

 of petroleum springs in many localities, age after age, from the earliest 

 periods of history ; to the fact that petroleum occurs in many rock- 

 formations even in ancient gneissoid strata which lie far below 

 the great Carboniferous and Devonian series (the first, apparently, in 

 which land vegetation has been detected) ; and to the absence in 

 petroleum-bearing rocks of any special organic remains or peculiar 

 characters suggestive of naphtha-forming capabilities, as compared 

 with strata in which petroleum has not been found. Regard being 

 had to these and other related facts, it is scarcely possible to refer 

 the enormous quantities stored up' in subterranean reservoirs, or 

 poured out in flowing springs from age to age, simply to the decom- 

 position of sea-weeds or the soft parts ordinary mollusca, radiata, or 

 lower types, entombed in rock deposits : evidences of these organic 

 bodies being wanting, moreover, in many petroleum-holding rocks t 

 and being far less abundant in others than in various strata in which 

 no traces of petroleum are met with. It might be pretended, with 

 almost an equal show of probability, that all the water on the earth 

 had come from organised bodies, simply because these bodies contain 

 or yield water. A suggestion of this kind would probably have been 

 attempted if water were a substance of comparatively limited occur- 

 rence. 



In the province of Ontario, petroleum occurs abundantly in springs 

 or wells, arising apparently from reservoirs in the Corniferous 

 (Devonian) Formation, in many parts of the region lying between 

 the more southern point of Lake Huron and the north-west shore of 

 Lake Erie : more especially in the township of Enniskillen ; and, 

 less abundantly, in Oxford, Mosa, and Dereham. Small quantities 

 have also been obtained from a well in the Utica (Lower Silurian) 

 Formation oi the Great Maiiitoulin Island in Georgian Bay the 

 shales of this formation, both there and elsewhere, being more or less 

 saturated with bituminous matter, and thus yielding petroleum on 

 distillation. Many of the calcareous strata of the Niagara, Trenton, 

 and other Silurian Formations, are also more or less bituminous; 

 and liquid and viscous petroleum is occasionally found in the cavities 

 of fossil shells, enclosed in these beds, as well as fosilized corals, &c., 

 of Devonian rocks. Petroleum springs occur likewise in the Devon- 





