394 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
It is perhaps needless to say that there is nothing whatever in 
the mode of occurrence of the Punjab oil, to uphold the chimeri- 
cal belief that rock oil ever passes by distillation, emanation, or 
otherwise, from one set of rocks to another, or that it originates in 
any different rocks from those in which it is found; and nothi . 
to show that it has been formed by any other method than the — 
very natural and sufficient one of the slow decomposition of 
organic matter, deposited along with the other materials of the — 
rock, Neither is there anything to show that the oil has been 
driven by the upward pressure of water, from the lower parts of 
i is wea ee 
numerous in some regions along the tops of rock saddles, the 
reason is clear, that the oil-bearing bed lies too deep for boring — 
conveniently elsewhere. 
the spirit of a Chinese traveller in those days. I 
ing-yuen was at the time the junior member of the *m 
Commission despatched from Pekin to accompany the Lewé 
delegation in 1801. : right 
“The sailors came to us to-day, to say that it was er 
time to sacrifice to the Heh-kao or Kuro-siwo, i. e the ne 
Sewer; and it appears from the account of Wang, 2 fore ee 
to Lewchew, that it was the practice when the vessel ree : 
Kuro-siwo, to throw a live sheep and a pig into it to po 
the god, and then to scare him by drawing up the guard : 
