TKANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 57 



((/). At the base of the coal-measures in conglomerate or millstone giit. 



(A). Small wells in the Archimedes limestone (Lower Carboniferous) of 

 Kentucky. 



(?'). Chemung and Portage groups (Upper Derouian) in at least three different 

 levels; in AV. Pemi. and N. Ohio. A careful study of the distribution of the pro- 

 ducing wells upon Oil Creek has satisfied me that they are aranged in four groups, 

 with scarcely any intermediate stragglers. Tliese centres are at Titusville, Petro- 

 leum, Cherry Run and vicinity, and about Oil City. Those at Pit Hole constitute 

 another group. The quantity and quality of petroleum obtained is proportioned 

 (the latter inversely) to the depth attained by the bore-holes. In the Cherry Run 

 district the wells in the vallej' average 550 feet in depth ; those at Pit Hole average 

 620 feet. At both these localities attempts have been made successfully to obtain 

 petroleum by piercing the hill-sides, and that from levels abo^e the average depth 

 of the valleys. 



(j). Black slate of Ohio, Ky., Tenn., or the representatives of the New York 

 formations from the Genessee to the Marcellus slates. This is about the middle of 

 the Devonian. 



(/i). Corniferous limestone, and the overlying Hamilton group in Canada West, 

 extending to Michigan. This is largely productive. 



(Z). Lower Helderberg limestone at Gaspe, C. E. This is Upper Silurian, and 

 awaits development. 



(ill). Niagara limestone, near Chicago, 111. Not yet remimerative. 



(«). In the equivalents of the Lorraine and Utica slates and Trenton limestone 

 of the Lower Silurian in Kentucky and Tennessee. One well in Kentucky in these 

 rocks was estimated to have yielded .50,000 barrels. 



The immense territory in North America, several hundred square mUes in extent, 

 underlaid by the formations mentioned above, in an unaltered state, assures the 

 world that the petroleum of the New World, like its coal, is probabl}- practically 

 inexhaustible. 



6. Petroleum is unquestionably of organic origin. In my opinion the great mass 

 of it has been derived from plants ; but some think it comes from animals, being 

 either a fish-oil or a substance related to adipocere. It does not appear to be the 

 result of a natural distillation of coal, since its chemical composition is difi'erent 

 from the oil manufactured artificially from the cannels, containing neither aniline 

 nor nitrobenzole. Moreo\'er, petroleum occupied fissures in the Silurian and De- 

 vonian strata long before the trees of the coal-period were growing in their native 

 forests. The nearly universal association of brine with petroleum, and the fact of 

 the slight solubility of hj'drocarbon in fresh- but insolubility in salt-water, excite 

 the inquiry whether salt-water of prinueval lagoons may not have prevented the 

 escape of the vegetable gases beneath, and condensed them into liquid ! The hint 

 appears to us worthy of consideration. 



On the parts of England and Wales in which Coal may and may not he loolrd 

 for beyond the liwwn Coal-field?:. By Sir Eodeeick I. Muechison, Bart., 

 K.C.B., D.C.L., F.E.S., F.G.S., Director- General of the Geological Survey. 



The ingenious suggestion of IMr. Godwin-Austen, that coal-measures might pos- 

 sibly be found under London and the south-eastern part of England, was formed on 

 a general and comprehensive view, as well as upon observation. He argued that as 

 coal is worked under tlie chalk at Valenciennes, in France, and had been found to a 

 small extent in recent sinkings under the cretaceous deposits ranging westwards 

 towards Calais, it might further extend across the Channel, and occur under similar 

 cretaceous rocks in the south of England. 



This theory, which, from the reputation of its author, attracted considerable atten- 

 tion, has recently been largely and boldly applied by Mr. H. Ilussey "S'ivian, M.F., 

 who, in a speech delivered in the House of Commons, when moving for the appoint- 

 ment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the quantity of Eritisli coal, expressed 

 the opinion that this mineral might be found in the southern counties of England, 

 and even beneath the Houses of Parliament. 



