230 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 348 



system, and originated, like the earth, from out of the solar atmos- 

 phere. Meteorites are most probably fragments of planets, and a 

 large proportion of them include iron in their composition, often as 

 carbides, in the same form as ordinary cast iron ; that is to say, a 

 part of the carbon is free, and a part is in chemical union with the 

 iron. It has been shown, besides, that all basalts contain iron, and 

 basalts are nothing more than lavas forced by volcanic eruptions 

 from the heart of the earth to its surface. The same causes may 

 have led to the existence of combinations of carbon with other metals. 



The process of the formation of petroleum seems to be the fol- 

 lowing : It is generally admitted that the crust of the earth is very 

 thin in comparison with the diameter of the latter, and that this 

 crust encloses soft or fluid substances, among which the carbides 

 of iron and of other metals find a place. When, in consequence of 

 cooling or some other cause, a fissure takes place through which 

 a mountain-range is protruded, the crust of the earth is bent, and 

 at the foot of the hills fissures are formed ; or, at any rate, the con- 

 tinuity of the rocky layers is disturbed, and they are rendered more 

 or less porous, so that surface waters are able to make their way 

 deep into the bowels of the earth, and to reach occasionally the 

 heated deposits of metallic carbides, which may exist either in a 

 separated condition or blended with other matter. Under such 

 circumstances, it is easy to see what must take place. Iron, or 

 whatever other metal may be present, forms an oxide with the 

 oxygen of the water. Hydrogen is either set free or combined with 

 the carbon which was associated with the metal, and becomes a 

 volatile substance ; that is, naphtha. The water which had pene- 

 trated down to the incandescent mass was changed into steam, a 

 portion of which found its way through the porous substances with 

 which the fissures were filled, and carried with it the vapors of the 

 newly formed hydrocarbons ; and this mixture of vapors was con- 

 densed wholly or in part as soon as it reached the cooler strata. 

 The chemical composition of the hydrocarbons produced will de- 

 pend upon the conditions of temperature and pressure under which 

 they are formed. It is obvious that these may vary between very 

 wide limits ; and hence it is that mineral oils, mineral pitch, ozokerite, 

 and similar products differ so greatly from each other in the rela- 

 tive proportions of hydrogen and carbon. I may mention that 

 artificial petroleum has been frequently prepared by a process 

 analogous to that described above. 



Such is the theory of the distinguished philosopher, who has 

 framed it not alone upon his wide chemical knowledge, but also 

 upon the practical experience derived from visiting officially the 

 principal oil-producing districts of Europe and America, from dis- 

 cussing the subject with able men deeply interested in the oil in- 

 dustry, and from collecting all the available literature on the sub- 

 ject. It is needless to remark that Dr. Mendeleeff's views are not 

 shared by every competent authority ; nevertheless the remarkable 

 permanence of oil-wells, the apparently inexhaustible evolution of 

 hydrocarbon gases in certain regions, almost forces one to believe 

 that the hydrocarbon products must be forming as fast as they are 

 consumed, that there is little danger of the demand ever exceeding 

 the supply, and that there is every prospect of oil being found in 

 almost every portion of the surface of the earth, especially in the 

 vicinity of great geological disturbances. Improved methods of 

 boring wells will enable greater depths to be reached ; and it should 

 be remembered, that, apart from the cost of sinking a deep well, 

 there is no extra expense in working at great depths, because the 

 oil generally rises to the surface or near it. The extraordinary 

 pressures, amounting to three hundred pounds per square inch, 

 which have been measured in some wells, seem to me to yield con- 

 clusive evidence of the impermeability of the strata from under 

 which the oil has been forced up, and tend to confirm the view that 

 it must have been formed in regions far below any which could 

 have contained organic remains. 



At Reykjavik a society has just been established, under the 

 presidentship of Professor B. Grondal, called the Icelandic Natural- 

 ists' Society, the chief aim of which is to found a museum of natural 

 history for Iceland, to be the property of the country. For this 

 purpose it is not only intended to collect specimens of the fauna, 

 flora, and mineral deposits of Iceland, but also to obtain by ex- 

 change, or in any other convenient manner, specimens from abroad. 



OPEN-AIR TRAVEL AS A CURER AND PREVENTER 

 OF CONSUMPTION, AS SEEN IN THE HISTORY 

 OF A NEW ENGLAND FAMILY.' 



*' For my own part, I ititend to hunt twice a week durine my stay with Sir Roger ; 

 and I shall prescribe the moderate use of this exercise to all my country friends as the 

 best kind of physic for mending a bad and preserving a good one." — Str Roger de 

 Coverley, chapter xiii. p. loi, Goldschmidt, Edinburgh, 1889. 



It is a curious coincidence, that, at the same meeting of the Cli- 

 matological Association, the president should give you some infor- 

 mation gleaned from my recorded cases as to the connection of 

 pleurisy with phthisis, and I should present the history of my 

 father,' cured, as I believe, of severe phthisical symptoms by a 

 journey in an open chaise, and by persistent daily walking of from 

 five to six miles during the rest of his life. In connection with this, 

 I shall endeavor to show, that, by the same persistent open-air 

 treatment of his children during their periods of growth, he was 

 able to prevent the occurrence of the same disease in a large num- 

 ber of his descendants, who, in consequence of himself and his 

 wife being tuberculous, and also first-cousins, must have been very 

 strongly predisposed to it.' 



I have a record of this journey as kept by my father in 1808, 

 when he was thirty-five years of age. I found it recently, tied up 

 in a bundle of old papers which had been resting quietly hidden 

 for over half a century. It is a very compact, precisely written 

 statement of that journey, showing, indirectly at least, its benign 

 effects upon him. 



It is eminently suggestive to me of the proper treatment of cer- 

 tain cases of phthisis ; and, in the hope that it will be suggestive 

 to others also, I now lay it before this society. To some sensitive 

 minds it may seem to be of too private and personal a character to 

 be placed thus freely before any public assembly. I have no such 

 feeling when questions of human health and happiness are in- 

 volved. 



In 1808 my father was undoubtedly threatened with consump- 

 tion. He had cough, hemoptysis, anorexia, diarrhoea, and general 

 malaise, with fever and great debility. On Aug. 29 of that year, 

 when thus ill, he started, with a friend as his companion and driv- 

 er, in an open, one-horse chaise for a tour through New Eng- 

 land. At that time it will be recollected that there were no 

 cars, and travel was had in one's own carriage or in public 

 coaches holding nine persons. These were driven over turn- 

 pikes or private roads. There were hotels, more or less com- 

 fortable, at which travellers could sleep and get food, in every town. 

 This record lets us more or less distinctly into the feelings, physi- 

 cal and mental, of every day of the month during which the jour- 

 ney lasted. A glance at the map* will show that the travellers 

 went from Salem, Mass., down into Rhode Island, thence by way 

 of Connecticut up through the hills of western Massachusetts to 

 Albany and Troy, and back through Massachusetts to New Hamp- 

 shire, Vermont, and Maine, and then to the home from which he 

 started. During the trip he travelled 748 miles, passed through 

 113 towns and cities, and the time spent in this daily open-air ex- 

 ercise was thirty days. During that time he went through all 

 stages of feeling of mental discouragement and of physical weak- 

 ness up to a real enjoyment of life. 



Allow me to refer briefly to these changes. Starting from Sa- 



^ Read before the American CHmatological Association, June. 1889, by Henry L. 

 Bowditch, M.D., of Boston, Mass. 



- Capt. Nathaniel Bowditch, the father of American mathematics. 



^ I am well aware, that, since the brilliant discovery by Koch of the bacillus tu- 

 berculosis, some writers deny that phthisis can be inherited. But surely this opinion 

 I cannot think true. All my medical experience is directly against it. Moreover, we 

 all admit that a certain deterioration of the vital power of the whole, or an abrasion 

 of a part, of the body, is necessary for the life and propagation of the bacillus and 

 consequent production of tubercular phthisis. Hence, as far as active out-of-door life 

 tends to the production of perfect health in a person or a family, it would seem, a 

 priori^ that the course pursued by my father, which undoubtedly was of such infi- 

 nite service in his own case toward the cure of phthisis, must have been of great use 

 to his children as a preventive, by making them all robust from their earliest years. 

 By so doing he opposed any tendency to poor constitutions, impressed on them from 

 their births ; which tendencies, if they had not been counteracted from early life, 

 would, I believe, have made his descendants easy recipients of phthisis. 



^ A large map was shown at the meeting, marked by circles on the towns where 

 the nights were passed. These circles were entirely black at first, indicating great de- 

 pression of mind and body, and they became gradually lighter as the patient got bet- 

 ter. Those over the last half of the journey were not only free from any shade, but 

 were surrounded by a red border, indicating the comfortable feeling of returning 

 health. 



