Petroleum. 121 



The Kenawha salines present a most interesting and lively scene 

 of activity and business. At intervals of every quarter of a mile, 

 both shores of the river are lined with furnaces, sending forth dense 

 curling volumes of coal smoke. The busy hum of voices, and the 

 rattling of the " train wagons," along the rail ways, with the bustle 

 of the salt boats, and steam boats, to which the depth of the river 

 affords a safe and pleasant navigation to the upper furnaces, give to 

 this spot all the life and activity of a large city. The annexed 

 " view of the salines," (see page 34 of the wood cuts,) with the 

 outlines of the hills, will assist the reader in understanding both the 

 geology and the situation of this interesting spot.* 



Petroleum. 



This mineral oil rises in nearly all the wells. It is, however, less 

 abundant than formerly, when the avenues through which it ascends to 

 the surface were far less numerous. The source of its origin must be 

 below the present bottoms of the salt wells, as no large beds of coal 

 are passed in boring for water. It has been remarked, that as the wells 

 become numerous, the salt water does not rise in them so high, by 

 several feet, as it did in the first wells. This is probably owing to 

 the partial exhaustion of the immense magazines of carburetted hy- 

 drogen, that formerly assisted the ascent of the water. Writers are 

 generally agreed, that petroleum is a product of the vegetable decom- 

 position, which produces bituminous coal. The manner of the pro- 

 duction of petroleum down deep in the earth, being out of view, is of 

 course, to a degree, a mystery. The art of the chemist, and of the 

 manufacturer, have, however, been able to imitate it to a good degree, 

 by the distillation of bituminous coal, and by the ignition of wood, as 

 happens in preparing charcoal in iron cylinders for the manufacture of 

 gunpowder ; and also in the manufacture of pyroligneous acid, during 

 the distillation of which, something like petroleum is produced ; and 

 from that source a fluid resembling naptha has been obtained by a 

 subsequent distillation. The inflammable gases evolved in the salines, 

 with or without the petroleum ; those that flow from the strata of 

 coal mines, and those obtained by the destructive distillation or slow 

 spontaneous decomposition of vegetables, being identical, leave no 



* I am indebted to Doct. Patrick J. C. McFarland, Col. Donally, Mr. 3L. RufF- 

 ner, and Mr. Whitaker, for many valuable facts in the history of the " Kenawha 

 valley." 



Vol. XXIX.— No. 1. 16 



