•2'2() BITUMEN, ASPHALTUM, PETROLEUM, ETC. 



ALBERTITE. 



This remarkable mineral very much resembles the asphalt of commerce 

 in being black, brittle and lustrous, with a broad conchoidal fracture; but 

 it is less friable and its composition is also different, and it differs in fusi- 

 bility and its relation to various solvents. The color of its powder is por- 

 celain black, lustre resinous and splendent or shining, perfectly opaque, 

 very brittle, odor bituminous; when rubbed is electric, burns and emits 

 jets of gas in the flame of a spirit lamp, but does not melt like asphalt, but 

 can be melted in a close tube. Under the microscope it presents no ap- 

 pearance of organic structure, and is free from mineral charcoal or impure 

 coal. Its composition is, volatile combustible matter 57.20, ash in coke .27. 

 It is found in King's, filbert's and "Westmoreland counties, New Brunswick, 

 and its position is in the Lower Carboniferous Coal formation, in calcareo- 

 bituminous shales or pyroschists, which contain much bituminous matter, 

 also many fossil fishes of the genus Palaeoniscus:-^- These shales have been 

 much disturbed and contorted and, quoting from Dr. Dawson : "At the pit, 

 the beds dip at angles of 50° and G0°, and near the bottom of the shaft 

 consist of calcareous and ironstone bands and concretions. The Albert 

 mineral occupies a vein in these beds, having an irregular high dip, pre- 

 serving a general course of north 50° east to north 65° east, and at one 

 place is us much as seventeen feet wide, thinning to one foot. Twelve hun- 

 dred feet northeast it bends suddenly northwestwardly, the course bearing 

 north 29° east for twenty-five feet, then returning to north 50° east. The 

 vein has been worked to a depth of 1,162 feet, and occupies a regular fissure 

 formed by an abrupt anticlinal or arching of the shale bed's, appearing to 

 be parallel to them, but its age is not therefore contemporaneous, for there 

 are no stigmaria underclays which might be expected in a stratified coal 

 bed.f 



The mineral must have been, at some former time, in a liquid state and 

 subsequently hardened, for a little is occasionally found in the spaces be- 

 tween the wall rocks. 'I Albertite in small quantities has been found at 

 other localities — some of them fifty miles distant. 



The chief export has been to the United States for making oil, and part- 

 ly for admixture with ordinary bituminous coals in the preparation of illu- 

 minating gas. It yields one hundred gallons of crude oil to the ton, or 

 14,500 cubic feet of superior illuminating gas. The royalty paid to the 

 government up to January 1, 1866, was $8,089.29, and the aimount exported 

 for twelve years, from 1863 to 1874, inclusive, 154,800 tons. The yield 

 from the mine is now becoming less, and the probability is that it will be 

 exhausted before many ^^ears. 



GRAHAMITE. 



This, sometimes called Eitchie Mineral, was discovered in Eitchie coun- 

 ty. West Virginia. It occurs under similar circumstances to albertite and 



* Acadian Geology, by Dr. Dawson. t Dawson, Acadian Geology. j Ibid. 



