6o8 



NATURE 



[July 15. 1920 



professors, Varisco and Aliotta, and omits any 

 reference to their more celebrated contemporaries, 

 Croce and Gentile. His prayer is "for a Neo- 

 Thomist who is also a really qualified mathe- 

 matician." 



All the essays in the volume are interesting-. 

 Principal Jevons writes of religion from the point 

 of view of folk-lore study ; Mr. Gooch has given 

 an admirable review of the history of historical 

 research, the science which Croce names " storio- 

 grafia " ; while Prof. Bragg treats of " atomic 

 theories," but is only able to indicate in a nole the 

 new interest aroused by the work of Einstein. Of 

 this it is too early to take stock. H. W. C. 



Petroleum Geology. 



Geology of the Mid-Continent Oilfields. Kansas, 

 Oklahoma, and North Texas. By Dr. T. O. 

 Bosworth. Pp. XV -1-314. (New York: The 

 Macmillan Co. ; London : Macmillan and Co., 

 Ltd., 1920.) Price 3 dollars. 



IN this the latest contribution to the geolog-y 

 of the great Mid-Continent oilfields. Dr. 

 Bosworth has contented himself with summarising 

 the results of most of the recent work published 

 by American geologists in the Bulletins of the 

 United States Geological Survey, and in those of 

 the Oklahoma and Texas Surveys in particular. 

 His aim throughout has been to present the facts, 

 leaving deductions to the intelligence of the 

 reader, since, although he sets out with the 

 intention of reviewing those facts, he does not 

 succeed in attaining this end, for his final chapter, 

 devoted to general conclusions, mainly deduc- 

 tive, occupies only a little more than five pages 

 out of a total of 282 of text, and cannot be re- 

 garded as more than a somewhat hurried and non- 

 committal postscript to the preceding sections of 

 the book. 



To any keen student of petroleum geology the 

 announcement of a new publication dealing with 

 one of the world's greatest oilfields is to be 

 regarded with a certain degree of anticipation, 

 partly with reference to possible new theories of 

 oil accumulation and development, and partly (in 

 this case) from a curious desire to see how far the 

 teachings of the British geological school may be 

 afifirmed or modified by association in their own 

 country with American oil technologists. This 

 dual anticipation, however, is doomed to disap- 

 pointment, because there is certainly nothing 

 strikingly new in Dr. Bosworth 's book, and one 

 further perceives in the work a strong under- 

 current of bias to prevalent American opinion. 



It was to be hoped, for example, that new light 

 NO. 2646, VOL. 105] 



would be thrown on the structure of the North 

 and Central Texas fields, which are of such recent 

 development and importance ; but, beyond a brief 

 description of the local "closed dome," "nose," 

 and "terrace" structures originally described by 

 Dorsey Hagar in his paper before the American 

 Institute of Mining Engineers (1917), little in- 

 formation is forthcoming. 



Another point on which more information is 

 desirable is the possibility of the future develop- 

 ment of the fields to the west. The general west- 

 ward dip of the Palaeozoic rocks tends to shift the 

 oil horizons of the Pennsylvanian beds deeper and 

 deeper in that direction, and further prospecting 

 must inevitably lead to deeper drilling, assuming 

 the structure to remain uniform. But it is by na 

 means certain that such is the case, and on this 

 point the author is unable to enlighten us. He 

 suggests certain possibilities in regard to locating 

 oil in the underlying Mississippian and in the over- 

 lying Permian " Red " beds ; but in the former case 

 the great depth to which borings must necessarily 

 penetrate will tend to limit operations, whilst in 

 the latter the oil occurrences are probably ex- 

 tremely localised, the conditions obtaining in the 

 Healdton (Permian) field, which he quotes at some 

 length, being the exception rather than the rule. 

 It is only fair to add, however, that the short- 

 sighted policy of many of the oil companies in 

 prohibiting the publication of the results of de- 

 tailed surveys prevents many workers from doing 

 full justice to their research, and science, in con- 

 sequence, must suffer accordingly. 



It is interesting to note that in his conclusions 

 the author regards the "vegetable " hypothesis as 

 accounting for the origin of the hydrocarbons, and 

 he further recognises White's laws of progressive 

 devolatilisation as applicable to the Mid-Continent 

 fields, an opihion which is in accordance with 

 American views. 



For the rest, the book certainly contains some 

 useful features, the stratigraphy of the oilfields 

 and the relations of oil accumulation to structure 

 in most of the important fields being treated very 

 concisely. The chemical side is by no means 

 neglected, and the general characteristics of the 

 Mid-Continental oil and natural gas, and the pro- 

 duction of gasoline from that gas, are dealt with 

 in some detail. Maps, plans, and photographs of 

 the fields are included, together with a biblio- 

 graphy of the more important works relative to the 

 area. The volume will probably make its strongest 

 appeal to those who wish to gain a broad idea of 

 the geology of the oilfields without having re- 

 course to survey and other technical publications. 



H. B. MiLNER. 



