ON THE OCCURRENCE OF PETROLEUM IN THE PROVINCE 



OF CEBU ^ 



By Wallace E. Pratt 

 (From the Division of Mines, Bureau of Science, Manila, P. I.) 



TWO TEXT FIGURES 



HISTORICAL 



The occurrence of petroleum in Cebu appears to have been 

 first noted by the Spaniards about the year 1888. La Isla de 

 Cebu,^ a detailed geologic study by Abella, published in 1886, 

 contains no reference to petroleum, but the same writer in La 

 Isla de Panay,^ published in 1890, in discussing a natural flow 

 of inflammable gas which he encountered in Iloilo Province, 

 states that shales which yield small quantities of petroleum had 

 recently been discovered in Cebu, 



The records of the Spanish inspectorate of mines show that 

 application for the exclusive right to recover crude petroleum 

 and to refine the same in the Philippines was made in 1893 

 by an Englishman, named Alfred White, who stated that he 

 had discovered petroleum at Toledo, in Cebu, and that he wished 

 to exploit other petroleum deposits on Negros and Leyte. 



Becker * notes that petroleum is found at Asturias, Toledo, 

 and at Alegria, on the west coast of Cebu, and refers to the 

 Guia Oficial for 1898. Smith ^ visited Toledo and Alegria in 

 1906 and examined the petroleum prospects at these places. 

 The observations which are embodied in the following notes 

 were made recently during a number of short visits to Cebu 

 for the examination of other mineral resources. 



PETROLIFEROUS SHALE 



A fine-grained, bluish gray shale, or clay-shale, which emits 

 a slight odor of light oils and appears to be slightly petroliferous, 

 is to be observed at widely separated places in Cebu and is 

 probably of general distribution. This shale is exposed usually 



^ Received for publication April 23, 1915. 



^ D. Enrique Abella y Casariego, Rapida Descripcion de la Isla de Cebu. 

 Madrid (1886). 



'Descripcion de la Isla de Panay. Manila (1890), 125. 



* Geology of the Philippine Islands, U. S. Geol. Surv. (1901), 107. 



' Far Eastern Rev. (1907), 3, 9. 



281 



