THE PETROLEUM SPRINGS OF WESIrERN CANADA. 315 
existence, and made use of their products. Old oil vats and oil wells 
have been discovered, affording undoubted evidence of human works 
of great antiquity; and in Enniskillen, the great centre of the oil 
spring region in Canada, deers’ horns, and pieces of timber bearing 
the marks of the axe, have been dug up from considerable depths be- 
low the surface, in what appear to have been old wells. 
The fact of such remarkable springs occurring in western Canada 
could not fail to attract the attention of our Provincial Geologists, and 
accordingly we find them noticed in the reports of 1850-51 and 
1851-52, although in a somewhat cursory manner, leading to the in- 
ference that the material was only to be found in very limited amounts. 
In the first named report we find the following slight notice: “ Springs 
of petroleum, called usually oil springs, rise in the river Thames 
near its right bank in Mosa; the bituminous oil collected on cloths 
from the surface of which is used in the neighbourhood as a remedy 
for cuts and cutaneous diseases in horses. Similar springs exist in the 
township of Enniskillen, where a deposit of mineral pitch or mineral 
caoutchouc is said to extend over several acres on the seventeenth lot of 
the second concession.’ In a subsequent report, Mr. Murray, having 
visited the spot, thus describes the Enniskillen deposits: ‘This bed 
of bitumen, which in some parts has the consistence of mineral 
caoutchouc, occurs on the sixteenth lot of the second concession of 
Enniskillen, in the county of Lambton; but its extent does not ap- 
pear to exceed half an acre, with a thickness of two feet over about 
twenty feet square, from which it gradually thins towards the edge in 
all directions. Bituminous oil was observed to rise-to the surface of 
the water in Black Creek, a branch of Bear Creek, in two places on 
the seventeenth lot of the third concession of Enniskillen; and I was 
informed that it had been observed at other places farther down the 
stream.” 
The foregoing accounts embody the sum of what was publicly 
known regarding the oil springs in Western Canada previous to the 
year 1853, at which date they began to attract the attention of 
adventurers. It was not, however, until the year 1857 that the ma- 
terial was turned to profitable account. In consequence of the very 
successful introduction of the new coal oils, both for illuminating 
and lubricating purposes, under the patent of Mr. James Young, of 
Glasgow, certain gentlemen, foremost among whom was Mr. W. M. 
Williams of Hamilton, formed themselves into a company and acquired 
