454 EEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1899. 



is a bed of gravel, lying on the Miocene formation, in which the 

 ozokerite and petroleum occur in association with native sulphur, iron 

 pyrites, and zinc blende. Still lower a highly porous calcareous rock 

 is met with, containing cavities filled with petroleum and sulphurated 

 water, and below this again is a marl with gypsum and the salt-clay 

 formation destitute of petroleum. 



The ozokerite occurs in the form of veins of a thickness ranging 

 from a few millimeters to some feet, and is accompanied with more or 

 less petroleum and gaseous hydrocarbons. It fills the many fissures 

 with which the disturbed shales and Miocene sandstone abound, and 

 frequently forms thus a kind of network. The Boryslaw deposit 

 extends over a pear-shaped area, the axis of which lies E. 30 S. The 

 upper layers of the richest portion of the deposit occupy 7 an area of 

 about 21 hectares, with a length of 1,000 meters and a maximum 

 breadth of 350 meters, but outside this there is an outer zone of less 

 productive territory which increases the total superficies to about 

 60 hectares, with dimensions of 1,500 meters by 560 meters. The 

 deposit narrows considerably as the depth increases, and at a distance 

 of 100 meters from the surface of the ground has a breadth of only 

 200 meters. 



Uses. The ozokerite, after being freed so far as possible from im- 

 purities, is melted and cast into loaves or blocks of the form of a trun- 

 cated cone, and weighing about 50 to 60 kilos. There are two or three 

 recognized commercial qualities of the melted and cast ozokerite. The 

 first quality is transparent in thin sheets and its color ranges from 

 yellow to greenish brown. Adulteration by means of crude petroleum, 

 heavy oils, the residues from refineries, asphaltum, and even earthy 

 matter, are not unknown, and occasionally by a process of double casting 

 the exterior of the block is made to differ in quality from the interior. 



The refined material is known as ceresin (Specimen No. 63204, 

 U.S.N.M.). It is used for candles, an adulterant or a complete sub- 

 stitute for beeswax, in the manufacture of ointments and pomades. 

 A residual product from the purifying process, of a hard waxy nature, 

 is combined with india rubber and used as an insulating material for 

 electrical cables. In this form it is known as okanite. A ball black- 

 ing, used on the heels of shoes, is also manufactured from it. (See 

 Specimens Nos. 63204, 62235, 62236, 66076, U.S.N.M.) 



The names scheererite, hatchettite, fichtelite, and konlite are applied 

 to simple hydrocarbons closely allied to ozokerite found in beds of 

 peat and coal, but, so far as the writer is aware, never in such abun- 

 dance as to be of commercial value. 



The name torbanite or kerosene shale has been given to a dense coal- 

 black substance appearing and breaking much like cannel coal, and 

 which occurs in irregular, isolated, circumscribed, and lenticular depos- 

 its near the base of the carboniferous beds of New South Wales, Aus- 



