368 CHESTER W. WASHBURNE 



There is reason to doubt that the known types of oil shale had 

 anything to do with the formation of oil. Many of these shales, 

 as in Scotland, New Brunswick, and New South Wales, have 

 undergone such severe deformation that if their contents were 

 capable of being converted into crude oil by such means, it is hard 

 to understand why they have not all been completely converted. 

 Yet in these fields there is no indication that any of the oil-shale 

 has been altered into crude oil. Reagents will not extract more than 

 a trace of oil from them. The oils obtained from them by distillation 

 consist largely of unsaturated hydrocarbons which could not be 

 converted into the better types of natural crude oils except 

 by hydrogenation. Hydrogenation seems impossible in nature. 

 Moreover, the collection of numerous analysis by Hoefer shows 

 that the oil shales of various ages exhibit an increasing ratio of 

 carbon to hydrogen in the samples from older rocks, indicating 

 that the course of metamorphism of oil shales is very similar to 

 that of coal, and that the organic matter in these shales tends to 

 become harder and richer in carbon with the passage of time. 

 There is some suggestion that the oil shales of Colorado and Utah 

 and the Cannel coals of Kentucky will be found to be of this same 

 general tjrpe. The substances in shale which have been converted 

 into crude oils very likely are of a nature somewhat different from 

 the organic matter in the types of oil shales that have been studied. 

 The nature of this difference is a problem for future investigation. 

 This point may be determined by distilling unaltered marine oil 

 shales, preferably of the Late Tertiary, and by studying the decom- 

 position of the fats and waxes of modern organisms. 



Oil migration in wet sand. — Mr. McCoy's third experiment 

 shows rather clearly that under ordinary temperatures oil will 

 not migrate away from the larger pores in a sand under the influence 

 of gravity aided by rather strong circulation of water. The 

 capillary forces involved are strong enough to hold the oil in the 

 larger pores against the influence of gravity and water circulation. 



It would be very interesting to have this experiment repeated 

 under the temperatures that prevail at depths of a few miles, 

 where capillary forces are greatly reduced. The viscosity of the 

 oil also is reduced. A useful point has been established by 



