GAS. NATURAL. 



field University of the Disciples of Christ, which 

 were purchased by James A. Davis, of St. Louis, 

 Mo., and presented to the society. An enumera- 

 tion of the large gifts that have been made to 

 Friends' institutions in the Tinted States begins 

 with the donation of 45 acres of land and $15,000 

 in money by Moses Brown, of Providence. R. I., 

 early in the century, for the foundation of a Friends' 

 school in tin' New England Yearly Meeting. This was 

 followed by a gift from Mr. Brown's son. in 1827, of 

 $100,000 to the same institution for Friends' scholar- 

 ships. Havrrford College lias received numerous 

 gift* of from $25,000 to $30,000 from each donor, and 

 t he estate of Jacob P. Jones, who left the bulk of his 

 property to this institution, is expected to add about 

 $1,000,000 more to its funds. Bryn Mawr College for 

 wi iinen was founded by Dr. Joseph W. Taylor, who 

 bought the land and began the construction of a 

 building, when he died, leaving a residuary estate, 

 which is valued at $850,000, to the college. The 

 la-t gift inent ioned is that of Mr. Davis, of the prop- 

 erty at Wichita. The foreign missionary work of 

 American Friends is carried on in six countries 

 outside of the United States, and in Alaska and 

 among the American Indians. New England 

 Friends have completed a building for a girls' 

 training school near Jerusalem. A committee 1 ap- 

 pointed in 1897 is engaged in preparing a uniform 

 discipline for the thirteen Orthodox American 

 yearly meetings that correspond with one an- 

 other. 



A large conference of " Hicksite " Friends was 

 held at Richmond, Ind., at which important ques- 

 tions concerning the principles and work of that 

 branch of the society were considered. 



The returns of the whole society for 1898 show 

 that at the close of 1897 the number of Friends 

 registered throughout the world was 113,877, com- 

 pared with 1 12,413 -a gain of 1,464, or about 1.30 

 JUT cent. The chief gain (1,301) is in the United 

 States, where the membership is given as 93,699. 

 The whole number of Friends in Great Britain and 

 its colonies and on the Continent of Europe is 20,- 

 178, a net gain for the year of 163. There are 14 

 yearly meetings of Friends on the American conti- 

 nent, 2 in Great Britain and Ireland, 5 on the Con- 

 t inent of Europe, and 6 in Australasia, with mis- 

 sion stations in every quarter of the globe. The 

 whole number of " recognized ministers of the Gos- 



pel " is 1,648. The foreign-mission stations return 

 1.860 native members, with 104 Bible schools, hav- 

 ing an aggregate attendance of 5,102. 



The London Yearly Meeting met May 16. begin- 

 ning with the session of the meeting on Ministry 

 and Oversight. The reports from the provincial 

 meetings embodied many references to the im- 

 portance of Bible study and of the efforts that have 

 been made in different towns to promote it. The 

 subject has been made more prominent than here- 

 tofore in the life of the society by the institution of 

 a " summer school " at Scarborough, which has been 

 largely attended, where addresses and lectures on 

 subjects relating to religion, research, and scholar- 

 ships have been delivered by eminent men both of 

 the Society of Friends and of other denominations. 

 A committee had been formed at the close of the 

 summer school in August, 1897, for organizing this 

 work by arranging courses of lectures and helping in 

 the formation of local circles. It appeared at the 

 meeting of this committee held during the session of 

 the yearly meeting that seventeen courses of lectures 

 on Bible study had been given in different centers/ 

 In the course of the discussion of the epistles from 

 the American yearly meetings the question of cor- 

 respondence with the branch of American Friends 

 known as "Hicksite" was again raised. The Lon- 

 don Meeting has hesitated to recognize these Friends 

 in its correspondence, because the holding of com- 

 munication with other bodies was supposed to im- 

 ply a recognition of their orthodoxy, and the Hick- 

 sites were regarded as holding Unitarian doctrines. 

 It was maintained, on the other hand, in the discus- 

 sions at the present meeting that the Hicksites had 

 adhered to the principles of conservative Quakerism, 

 from which several of the bodies to whom epistles 

 were addressed had departed to a greater or less ex- 

 tent. A proposition was made that a simple letter be 

 sent to all who call themselves " Friends " in Amer- 

 ica stating the position of the London Meeting, but 

 not in a controversial spirit. It was generally 

 thought that the time had not yet come for opening 

 correspondence with the Hicksite body, and the 

 sense of the meeting was recorded as against the 

 proposal. Among matters of missionary work, the 

 attention of the meeting wa,s given to the concerns 

 of the industrial mission which had been established 

 by Friends on the island of Pemba, for the instruc- 

 tion of freed slaves. 



G- 



GAS, NATURAL. It has been known for centu- 

 ries that gas or inflammable vapors issued from the 

 earth in various localities. If those vapors became 

 ignited, they continued to burn indefinitely, and the 

 fires thus maintained were often regarded by super- 

 stitious persons with religious awe. Perhaps the 

 first attempt to utilize the heat produced by these 

 fires was made by the Chinese, who are said to use 

 it for evaporating water from brine in order to pro- 

 cure salt. From the fact that a gas similar in 

 properties and composition to natural gas is pro- 

 duced from decaying leaves, sticks, and other or- 

 ganic matter in the bottom of ponds, it, has been 

 held by some that all natural gas is produced from 

 similar materials in a similar manner, and this ex- 

 planation has been accepted by the majority of 

 scientific men. Since the discovery of the method 

 of producing calcium carbide in quantity and the 

 method of generating acetylene by the action of 

 watrr upon the carbide some have been inclined to 

 think that natural gas may have been produced in 

 a similar manner, namely, by the action of water on 



metallic carbides in the interior of the earth. Those 

 who accept this latter theory hold that the metallic 

 carbides exist in the interior of the earth in vast 

 quantities, and that water, finding its way down- 

 ward, comes in contact with these carbides and 

 generates natural gas and crude oil, which are pre- 

 vented from rising to the surface of the earth by 

 superimposed layers of rock. Both these theories 

 have able advocates among scientific observers. 



Natural gas has issued from the earth in south- 

 eastern Europe and southwestern Asia for centuries : 

 but. as before stated, little if any effort has been 

 made to utilize it or to increase the supply by drill- 

 ing or other artificial methods. One of the first 

 attempts to utilize it in the United States was madi 

 at Fredonia, N. Y., where it was used for illumin.i 

 ting when Lafayette visited this country in 1824. 

 No serious attempt was made to procure natural 

 gas by drilling until some years after the opening: 

 of the great petroleum fields of western Pennsyl- 

 vania in 1859. During the excitement that followed 

 the development of the petroleum deposits many 



