120 JReviems — Petroleum and Oilfields. 



Ice-dam Theory supported by Professor Agassiz and Mr. T. F. 

 Jamieson. Dr. Duncan describes some spaces formerly occupied by 

 selenite in the Lower Eocene Clays of the London Basin, giving 

 some valuable remarks on the origin and disappearance of the 

 mineral ; he comes to the conclusion that the occurrence of selenite 

 in a dejDOsit proves the former existence of organisms in it. The 

 Rev. 0. Fisher endeavours to prove the superposition of the Norwich 

 Crag to the Chillesford Clay, as exhibited in the section at Thorpe, 

 near Aldborough. Captain Godwin-Austen's paper on the Car- 

 boniferous Eocks of Kashmere, with notes on the Brachiopoda, by 

 Mr. Davidson, of which an abstract appeared in the former number 

 of the Journal, is here printed in full, with two plates of the fossils 

 executed by Mr. Davidson. 



An abstract of Pai-t iii. of M. Barrande's " Defense des Colonies," 

 a notice of the second volume of Dr. Bischof 's " Elements of Chemi- 

 cal and Physical Greology," and a communication on Dr. Laube's 

 " Brachiopods, etc., of the St. Cassian Beds," conclude the number. 



iaE"\ri:EAArs. 



I. — Petroleum and Oilfields and Oil-Discovekies in theik 

 Geological Aspect. 



1. Derrick and Drill ; on an Insight into the Discovery, Development, 



AND Present Condition and Future Prospects of Petroleum, in New 

 York, etc., etc.^ 



2. Geology, Oil Fields, and Minerals of Canada "West, etc. By Henry 



White, P. L. Surveyor, Toronto.^ 



MINERAL pitch and pitchy fluids issuing from the earth, have 

 been known from the earliest times of history. From the 

 date of the bituminous bricks of Babel to ou.r own oily era, bitumen 

 and its derivatives, or its allies, have been u.sed, here and there, and 

 now and then, for one purpose or another : a building material in the 

 ancient East, an embalming agent amongst the Egyptians, a medi- 

 cine amongst the civilized and the uncivilized; its more general 

 utility has shone forth at all epochs as an illuminator. In almost 

 every quarter of the globe this mineral has been found to occur ; 

 it still flashes over the surface of the ground from 



"those fountains of blue flame 



That burn into the Caspian," — 



where it was formerly deemed sacred by the fire-worshippers of 

 Western Asia ; whilst for ages it has been largely obtained in the 

 Birman Empire. The horrors of the Dead Sea included Asphalt in 

 their list, and France and Italy, Germany and England, Russia and 

 the Island of Trinidad, all swell the roll of localities in which free 

 bitumen, under one form or other, has been found. But it remained 



' Second Edition. New York : James Miller, 1865 ; London ; Triibner & Co. 

 2 Toronto : W. C. Chewett & Co., 1865 ; London : Triibner & Co. 



