116 SF. Peckham—The Origin of Bitumens. 
been subsequently filled with carbonaceous matter, as if injected 
from elo w, and that not by slow degrees, but suddenly and 
at once.’ "Ra hint is given by Dr. Taylor respecting t 
of these rocks, as at the time he wrote (1837) the relation 
between metamorphic and sedimentary rocks had not 
established. There is little doubt, however, that the veins in 
ew Brunswick and in West Virginia originated at nearly os: 
same time and subsequently to the Carboniferous era. It 
certain that subsequent to that era a great convulsion veiled an 
upheaval that in collapse produced the White Oak anticlinal 
in West Virginia, very near the southern end of which occurs 
the vein of Grahamite, oe the horizontal sandstones of the 
Coal-measures vertica hose who mined the vein declare 
upon them, eee lines of unequal pressure and sahestol 
that remain after the ee has cleaved from the horses or 
enclosing walls. Moreover, neither the walls of porous sand- 
stone, nor the horses, have absorbed the bitumen to the thick- 
ness. of paper. The significance of these facts was more 
forcibly impressed upon my mind when I found among a suite 
of specimens from the Albertite vein of New Brunswick a 
piece of the inclosing shale, marked with the mineral in forms 
almost identical with those observed on the sandstone horses 
in wee Fle nial 
a ales of a paper in which I seem the observations 
mace in New Brunswick and West Virginia with my own 
observations of a vein on the coast of California, which is 
talus projects vertically into the sands beneath.t Similar 
deposits are described by M. Coquand as occurring in Albania. 
He mentions in connection with the bituminous strata, 
at first very liquid, but soon became syrupy and was finally 
added to the accumulations of the bituminous cone. From his 
* Very carefully drawn illustrations of these stones “er — introduced it 
the original monograph. + This Journal, IT, xlviii, 3 
