PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. 



6G1 



"20 miles southwardly from San Francisco. 

 The range of bituminous shales in which the 

 oil-springs near Buenaventura occur, extend at 

 inten &.3 for 150 miles farther south, and also 

 at intervals to the north as far as into Santa 

 Clara County, eighty miles from San Francisco. 



The most productive district here is included 

 within one immense estate of 18,000 : 

 known as the Ojai Ranch. It is situated on the 

 northern slope, and in the valley adjacent to it, 

 of a mountain ridge, lying ten miles north of 

 Buenaventura, its greatest height being about 

 2,000 feet, its length thirteen miles, and its 

 course nearly east and west. 



Among the natural oil wells on it, the largest 

 is thirty feet in diameter, full of tarry oil, and 

 boiling with the escape of marsh-gas. This and 

 several less points of outflow are in the midst 

 of a very large expanse of asphaltum, doubtless 

 resulting from evaporation of the oil so long 

 escaping here, and which is estimated as equal in 

 entire volume to a mass one mile square and 

 one yard in depth. The large well was foul 

 with the decomposition of numerous cattle that 

 had been mired and drowned in the petroleum 

 an accident said frequently to occur in the dry 

 season when the animals are parched with thirst. 

 It has recently been questioned to what extent 

 the rock oils of California are identical with 

 the petroleum of the more 'easterly regions. 

 TiEFixn\G OF PETROLEUM, etc.) 



XEW YORK. Oil and gas springs, and other 

 appearances now regarded as indications of the 

 existence of subterranean collections of petro- 

 leum, have long been known, and in a few in- 

 stances still exist in parts of this State, chiefly 

 within the counties of Chatauqua and Cat- 

 taraugus. and to some extent in those of Erie, 

 Alleghany, Ontario, etc. The work of boring 

 for oil has lately been begun on Cattaraugus 

 Creek, in Ontario County, and at some other 

 points. 



KENTUCKY. Of the principal oil region in this 

 . portions lie in Cumberland County, and, it 

 would appear, in others ad.joining and not far 

 from this, as about Scottsville, in Allen County. 

 This oil territory is said also to be connected with 

 a line of disturbance, which stretches north- 

 west from Cumberland, through Russell, < 

 and Lincoln Counties. It thus lies in the south- 

 ern part of the State, and but little east of its 

 middle portion. 



In Michigan, gas springs and other indications 

 of oil, have for some time been known in St. 

 Clair County a district which would appear to 

 be part of the same one which has been longer 

 worked on the opposite side of the St. Clair 

 River, in Enniskillen. In Indiana, oil and tar 

 springs have, it is said, been known for many 

 years in Crawford County, near the middle of the 

 southern tier, on the Ohio River. Wells have 

 here been commenced on some of the tributa- 

 ries of Little Blue River, especially on Vest 

 Fork and Otto Fork. An oil spring, yielding 

 about a barrel of oil a day, and other indica- 

 tions, have been found near Cauon City, in 



Colorado. In Oregon, oil is said to be found 

 in the vicinity of Astoria, Besides occurring 

 so abundantly in the island of Trinidad as to 

 have formed the great Pitch Lake, or natural 

 deposit of bitumen there found, and in Barba- 

 does, petroleum is found near Havana and at 

 many other points in the island of Cuba, and in 

 fact also in many other of the West India isl- 

 ands. 



Geological Relations of Petroleum. Xearly, 

 if not quite all the series of stratified rocks, as 

 well as volcanic and metamorphic formations, 

 are found in some parts of the world to discharge 

 mineral oil, or to be charged with this oil, or 

 with the allied solid bitumen. The following 

 simple table will show the general order of 

 succession of the stratified rocks : 



STRATIFIED EOCKS FBOJC THE MOST EECEXT, 



DOWNWARD. 



V Post-Tertiary, or Quaternary. 



3. Xewer Pliocene. 



4. Older Pliocene. 



5. Miocene. 



6. Eocene, 



c-ous. 

 Jurassic. 

 Triassic. 

 Permian. 

 Carboniferous. 



Tertiary, 



V Secondary, or 3fe*O3oic. 



Primary, or Palaosoic. 



11 



Devonian. 



13. Silurian. 



14. Cambrian. J 



Although petroleum and bitumen are in Eu- 

 rope and Asia sometimes found in the lower 

 stratified or palaeozoic rocks, yet throughout 

 those continents they are for the most part 

 confined to the strata of newer secondary, or 

 even of tertiary age the latter, it is stated, in 

 the Bakoo region, in Georgia, on the west 

 coast of the Caspian Sea ; and also in Italy, and 

 in the Rangoon district. The bitumen of Trini- 

 dad, and of Venezuela are said also to be found 

 in connection with tertiary strata, and not lower 

 than the miocene. Prof. Silliman speaks of the 

 oil-bearing beds of the coast of California, as 

 being pretty certainly " cretaceous or tertiary." 

 The strata composing the mountain ridge on 

 which the Ojai Ranch is situated are ver 

 ular, and all stand at an angle of from 10 to 

 ith the vertical. The oil-bearing strata 

 bituminous shales and schists are at the sur- 

 face usually weathered whitish, or are red or 

 yellow, from presence of iron or sulphur; but 

 under the hammer they break black, like coal 

 shales. 



With the exception of that of the California 

 region, there does not appear to be any precise 

 statement as to the character of the strata within 

 which petroleum is found, in the more westerly 

 oil regions of the continent. In respect to the 

 more easterly oil regions of the United States 

 and those of Canada, it is certain that the oil 

 strata are those situated low in the series, and of 

 palaeozoic age, being probably in no case higher 

 than the horizon of about the middle of the car- 

 boniferous series. This is distinctly true of the 

 three great oil territories thus far chiefly devel- 

 oped ; namely, that of West Virginia and south- 

 eastern Ohio, which stands highest in the order 



