— 243 — 
ULTIMATE 
Carmen « & 2 4 «4 « # w (48,23 Bb. 
Hydrogen. . . . . . 4,58 5.06 
Nitrogen . &. 2 A 0.44 0.25 
Sulphur . fe wm ee OK 1.44 0.78 
Oxygen. . . . . 29.46 27.89 
ASM e.g <a iy. we @ ee eG. AB AR -B0G5S 
I. Sample from boring at Maraht. 
Il. Sample from surface outcrop at Maraht. 
The analyses show that the unweathered sample from the boring, 
which was being sunk for petroleum at the date of the Commission’s 
visit, contains considerably more carbon than the surface deposits. 
Attempts have been made to ship the material for the manu- 
facture of gas to neighboring cities, but on account of its small 
specific gravity, and the large bulk required to make a ton of the 
Boghead, such shipment have not been successful, one report being 
that neither of the two vessels sent out ever arrived at the des- 
tination. Some have supposed that the material gives of an infla- 
mable gas and that the vessels in question may thus have met 
with disaster, but the inflamable gas theory has no foundation in fact, 
and if the «report» is true about the vessels, non-arrival at the port 
of destination, is is most probably due to ordinary shipwreck owing 
to being loaded with a bulky substance having such little weight. 
The origin of the bituminous matter in these shales at Maraht 
was evidently the same as that in the shales at Taubaté: namely, from 
some form of Algoid vegetation (*). 
The Possibility of Petroleum Deposits in Brazil 
The writer has often been asked to express an opinion as to 
the possibility of finding petroleum in commercial quantity in 
Brazil. 
The question is one that does not admit of an adequate answer 
except for the regions visited by the writer, which as already stated, 
include only a portion of that great territory, and only the southern 
(*) See paper by David White, in «Scienco», New Series, Vol, XXIII, No 595, 
May 25, 1906, pp. 8L5 — 816, on «A Source of Hydrocarbons in the Ordo- 
viclan, 
