184 REPUKT 1871. 



Ill all tlicse various kiuds of geogi-apliical situation tliey are fomul, tlieir pro- 

 duction and exhibition lieing subject to necessary geological and other conditions, 

 on Trhich it is not the purpose of this paper to enter. 



The frequent association of these products with salt has been noticed. The oil- 

 fields of the Punjali, which have lately been surveyed and reported on, are all in 

 the north-west part of the broken series of hills and tract of country bearing the 

 ii-eneral name of the Salt Range, containing the inexhaustible stores of massive 

 salt fi-om which that province and neighbouring countries have been supplied for 

 many centuries. The explanation of the connexion of salt with petroleum has yet 

 to be sought, but the fact meanwhile is important. 



The oil is not always accompanied with gas, but the inflammable gas appears 

 o-enerallv, if not always, to indicate the existence of the oil in some form, and par- 

 ticularly, as it appears, in regions producing salt. 



The oil is obtained, as in Burmah, by making excavations in the soil in which 

 it has become dittused, into which excavations or wells the oil slowly passes from 

 the soil around. And it is procured by deep borings, in which it may rise in the 

 manner of water in artesian wells, by hydrostatic pressure, or, as in the many 

 instances with whicli descriptions of American and otlier oil-wells have made us 

 familiar, forced up from reservoirs in subterranean cavities under the pressure of 

 steam or other vapour. In any geographical situation it may be obtained in the 

 first manner. It is when it occurs along the outskirts of mountain-ranges that it 

 may rise as in artesian water-wells ; and wliere the earth lias been subjected to 

 violent internal action, and the rocks have been much split and displaced, it is 

 obtained from cavities and veins, frequently attended with escape of gas at the 

 surface of the ground and spontaneous discharges of the oil. 



These appear to be, in a general way, tlie lands of situation and the modes in 

 which, where these products liave been formed, they are obtained for use, or 

 where the surface-indications of their presence occur. It is desirable that further 

 and more definite information shoidd be gathered by those whose experience uf oil- 

 regions, or other opportimities, atlbrd them the means of contributing to our know- 

 ledge of a subject which has come to be of great practical importance as well as of 

 scientific and general interest. 



On the Fonnation of Sand-bars. By Dr. E.. J. Manx. 



Report on Badulcolan. Bij Pandit Manphal, C.;S'./. 



Oil the Eastern Cordillera, and the Kavir/ation of the River Madeira. 

 By C. E. ITaekhajt, C.B., See. R.G.S. 



The author began by referring to the paper which he read before the Association 

 at the Leeds Meeting in 1858, and in whicli he showed the vast importance of the 

 opening up of lines of water communication between the Andes and the Atlantic 

 by way of the Amazons, and the iuiinense extent of country which then remained 

 to be explored. Having pointed out what h:is since been done in the wav of dis- 

 covery, he proceeded to give an account of the recent investigations connected 

 with that portion of the mighty eastern Cordillera of the Andes which contains 

 the som'ces of streams that form the Beni, and to report upon the operations 

 which are in contemplation, with a view to opening a navigable route from the 

 Beni to the Atlantic by way of the river Madeira. The old Yncas of Peru did 

 all that was possible to secure for their people the wealth of those interminable 

 forests to the eastward of the Andes, but they did not know that the rivers dash- 

 ing down from their mountains led to an ocean whence the arts and products of 

 the whole world might be brought to their doors. But their descendants see, in. 

 the mighty Amazon and her tributaries, a means of saving the ruinous land-car- 

 riage of their merchandize to the Pacific coast. The cost of taking a ton of mer- 

 chandize from Cuzco, the capital of the Yncas, or from La Paz, the commercial 

 capital of Bolivia, to England, is about £40, the time five months. Under such 

 conditions no produce but gold, silver, and chinchoua bark would pay tlic expense 



