394 S. F. Peckham — Origin of Bitumens. 



consequence of it, was an immense accumulation of gas. Some 

 ^ i it escaped into the air during the upheaval that produced 

 ne White Oak anticlinal of West Virginia, including the Gra- 

 hamite vein near bj, and some of it remained enclosed. There 

 is little reason to doubt, that whether or no the oil found north 

 of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers is distilled from the Trenton 

 Limestones, the oils of eastern Kentucky have been. There- 

 fore, admitting that Prof. Orton is correct in his conclusions 

 that the sporangites of the shales are a source of oil, and that 

 the Trenton Limestone still contains petroleum in situ, I 

 still maintain my thesis, that the metamorphic action to which 

 the Appalachian system has been subjected furnished the heat 

 that has fractionally distilled all of the different varieties of 

 Appalachian petroleum, either from their original source in the 

 Trenton Limestone or through the decomposition of the shales. 

 And further, that any consideration of the chemical constitu- 

 tion of these oils must show, that the oils found east of Central 

 Ohio and north of the Ohio and Kanawha rivers are nearly 

 pure paraffines, and that the western Ohio and Indiana oils — 

 the Trenton Limestone oils — are mainly paraffines containing 

 sulphur compounds from which the other oils are free ; and 

 still further, that the oils of southeastern Kentucky and Ten- 

 nessee partake of the characteristics of both the Appalachian 

 and Trenton oils. 



I have lately returned to the region in Ventura County, Cal., 

 that I visited in 1865, and that is so rich in all the phenomena 

 that attends the occurrence of bitumen. During the years that 

 have intervened between these visits, large quantities of petro- 

 leum have been brought to the surface, much of which has 

 been burned as fuel. The refining of these oils still presents 

 many interesting and involved problems. Of chief scientific 

 importance is the discovery, lately made, and which I discussed 

 in the paper that 1 read at the Mid-Winter Fair Congress of 

 Chemists, of the manner in which the nitrogen content of these 

 oils is chemically combined with the hydrocarbons.* 



While this subject is of great interest to chemistry and 

 technology, it is of supreme interest as related to the study of 

 the origin of bitumens, and it is with some satisfaction that I 

 note the sign boards that I have set up along the path that led 

 to this discovery. While Warren produced the paraffines 

 from menhaden oil soap, Dippel had a hundred years before 

 produced pyridin by the destructive distillation of the gelatine 

 of bones and the tissue of highly organized animals; but 

 nowhere in nature had Dippel's oil been discovered until 

 within the last two years it has been extracted from all the 

 different varieties of bitumen found in Ventura county and 

 its vicinity and from their distillates. These bitumens occur 



*This Journal, Oct., 1894 



