ANNITEESAEY ADBKESS OF THE l^RESTDEJs'T. CXI 



the successive creations of organic life, according to the conditions 

 in whicli they were to live. 



The publication of various papers in the different scientific 

 journals of Italy gives us the pleasing assurance that the progress 

 of geological discovery in that interesting and classic land is satis- 

 factory. I have already alluded to some of them, and additional 

 evidence of this fact will be found in the publication of a new 

 work by Major Crescenza Montagna, entitled ' Grenerazione della 

 terra,' of which the first three fasciculi have already appeared. It 

 combines what may be called both the elements and principles of 

 geology, and is remarkable for sound and cautious views and great 

 originality of thought on many of those subjects which now occupy 

 the attention of geologists. As far as can be judged from the 

 parts which have as yet appeared, it promises to be a valuable 

 addition to Italian geological literature. 



The civil war which has been so long raging in the United States 

 has, no doubt, greatly interfered with the progress of geological 

 investigation amongst our transatlantic fellow- workers ; yet the 

 pages of Silliman's Journal show us that they have not been 

 altogether idle. I have also received information that Mr. Whit- 

 ney has been very energetic in the survey of California, and has 

 published the first part of his rejDort, with some very good plates 

 drawn on stone, in Philadelphia. 



But the subject which, notwithstanding the importance of the 

 war, appears to have chiefly engrossed public attention in some 

 of the States is the discovery of Petroleum, and the rapid de- 

 velopment of measures to obtain it from the oil-wells, and the 

 daily increasing quantity obtained. The extent of country over 

 which these oil-wells are now worked, and that to which they are 

 sujjposed to reach, is enormous ; the activity and enterprise they 

 have called forth is almost incredible, and the quantities obtained 

 verge upon the fabulous. The richest district now worked is 

 Yenango County and part of Crawford County, Pennsylvania ; but 

 it is supposed by some to extend from the southern portion of the 

 Ohio Valley to Georgian Bay of Lake Huron in Upper Canada, and 

 from the AUeghanies in Pennsylvania to the western limits of the 

 bituminous coal-fields in the vicinity of the Missouri Eiver. 



With regard to the amount of enterprise developed, I Avill only 

 mention, that independent of all private speculations, I find in one 

 jSTumber of the ' Philadelphia Coal-oil Circular,' a list of 483 com- 

 panies, chiefly located in Philadelphia and New York, formed for 

 the piu^pose of sinking oil-wells, and not half of which are yet iu 

 operation, while the produce already obtained is stated to exceed 

 10,000 barrels a day. 



With reference to this subject, I may mention an interesting 

 paper by Mr. Lesley in the ' Proceedings of the American Philo- 

 sophical Society,' on a Petroleum vein in North-western Virginia. 

 The substance, Avhich is remarkably pure asphaltum, fills a crack 

 several feet thick and of great cxteiit, cutting through the rocks of 

 the countiy almost at right angles to their stratification. It is sup- 



