S. F. Peckham — Origin of Bitumens. 391 



interest since the discovery of petroleum, for scientific pur- 

 poses. This distillation yielded the hydrides of the mon- 

 atomic alcohol radicals, and benzole and its homologues. 



Later, Luther At wood constructed a sort of kiln in the form 

 of a tobacco pipe. The bowl held several tons of Cannelton 

 cannel coal. A tire was kindled on top of the coal and the 

 draft was urged by a jet of steam. In this apparatus distilla- 

 tion proceeded of necessity at the lowest possible temperature, 

 the products of combustion expelling all the volatile matter as 

 the combustion proceeded downward. The distillates more 

 nearly resembled petroleum than any that had been produced 

 by methods of distillation previously employed, apparently, 

 because the distillation proceeded at the lowest possible temper- 

 ature. 



While this subject engrossed my thoughts I was led to con^ 

 sider the occurrence of bitumen in veins. I read reports on 

 Grahamite and Albertite and Cuban asphalt and they all 

 seemed to me to be distillates that were injected into crevices 

 that resulted from an upheaval of the crust of the earth. At 

 that time I had never visited the locality where Grahamite 

 occurs, but I had seen the masses of asphaltum of vast extent 

 that occur on the Pacific coast.* No one who has seen them 

 doubts that they were injected into earthquake crevices. I 

 made this question the subject of a communication to this 

 Journal and years after, I had the pleasure of a careful inspec- 

 tion of the locality in which the Grahamite was obtained and 

 talked with the men who mined it out. I saw nothing there 

 that led me to question for an instant the relation of the Gra- 

 hamite and Albertite veins to the other veins of bitumen and 

 also to petroleum. 



Rut distillation requires heat and the source of heat occa- 

 sionally occupied my thoughts. No satisfactory conclusion 

 was reached upon this point until one afternoon I met two of 

 the men who helped drill. Jonathan Watson's deep well. They 

 told me their story all unconscious of what it meant to me. 

 They said they drilled through all of the oil sands and struck 

 the soapstone (Devonian shale) and kept on with the intention 

 of reaching the limestone (corniferous limestone) which they 

 believed they struck at the bottom of the well, just as, for 

 some reason, the work was suspended and never resumed. 

 They said the " soapstone " became harder as they went .down 

 and was redder in color, in fact had been burnt like brick. 

 Their language at once recalled the metamorphosed shales that 

 are so abundant in Santa Barbara (now Ventura) county, Cal., 

 that are often as sonorous as porcelain. One day not long 

 after, to wile away a few moments while waiting for a friend, 



*This Journal, II, xlviii, p. 362; Am. Journal of Gas Lighting, xi, p. 164. 



