— 243 — 



And this too when it is remembered that it is found through ali 

 strafa , Silurian and Tertiary. Remember this is also when corapared 

 Avith the Russian oil fields whioh are much larger thah those of the 

 United States. 



It seeras to us of peat, muck, petroleum, asphaltum and even coal, 

 brown coal, bitiimenous coal and anthracite had their origin from the 

 lower forms of life , where they rnerge iuto the vegetable or in the 

 other side the animai. lucluding thus the layers of peat which have 

 recently been revealed in Bond Brook Park, Newark, New Jersey This 

 is a public prank that has been laid ont in Newark, New Jersey. There 

 the layers of earth are peat , almost black in color which goes down 

 about two feet, sometimes three, underlaid by day which is blueish at 

 the lop raergeing into an almost white in color. This varies in thickness. 

 Beneath is a red grave! which is glacial raoraine. This is thirty to 

 sixty feet thiek. It rest on the red sandstoue, the Newark sandstone as 

 it is known as and problematic the Suvo or Sovo-Triassic of Dana. 1 

 fìnd the etymology of peat is doubtful accordiug to the books. Skeat, 

 we are told, considera the true form to be beat, from its being used to 

 forni tire, from the middle English beten, to replentsh the fire. At ali 

 events it must have been used to build fires where wood was scarce 

 and long before coal was used for this is of comparativety modem use. 



In most geological books it is said to be formed from sphagnum 

 or raoss or sirailar water plants which decomposed were permitted to 

 decay. I tliink that sphagnum or similar moss have nothing to do with 

 the formation of peat, for the microscope fails toreveal traces of theni 

 in any peal which I have examined. I rather thiuk it was formed from 

 the lower plants and Protista and also from Bacillaria. These latter are 

 placed in the Protista by Haeckel. Navicula viridis , F. J. K. an ex- 

 treraely common form of Bacillarian which is in ali the peat which I 

 have examined. 



The origin of petroleum and consequently of asphaltum has spe- 

 cially enguaged my attcntion ever since I first undertook the examina- 

 tion of earths for the California State Geological Survey, and that was 

 many years ago. For among the infusorial earths were certain things 

 which had traces in thcni of asphaltum and that was at Montevey in 

 California where Prof. Biake had first seen the Diatomaceous or, as it 

 now called the Bacillarian sfrata. 



Some years after I joined the Survey I got some speciraens from 

 the Bailey collection in the Boston Society of iSfatural History and they 



