eo 



FOSSIL HYDRO-CARBONS, 



Canada may revel for a time in their supply of recent wood-fuel, or make 

 gas from the grass-tree resins ; hut as population increases, and bears 

 a greater relative proportion to the number of broad acres in those colonies, 

 they, like ourselves, will come to the end of their visible resources, and 

 have to fall back upon those hidden treasures which a Gracious Being has 

 stored for the benefit of a too-often thankless offspring. 



The principal fossil hydro-carbons are supplied by the mineralised or 

 semi-mineralised remains of primeval vegetation. Trees and plants of 

 former phases of this creation's existence, if not of former worlds, closely 

 preserved and hermetically sealed, as it were, by surrounding matter, have 

 retained their economic virtues ; and, on being disentombed, readily yield 

 up their latent properties to artificial heat, or are sometimes distilled in 

 their secret resting-places by subterranean fires, and percolate in liquid 

 streams of bitumen to the surface of the soil. These fossil hydro-carbons 

 occur as coals, peat, and bitumen ; and it is these substances exclusively 

 which are to form the main topic of my paper. 



We sometimes meet with opinions in opposition to the general impres- 

 sion that coals and bitumen are exclusively of vegetable origin. Animal 

 remains in decomposition will undoubtedly produce certain siibstances 

 analogous to those resulting from decayed vegetation ; i. e., certain combina- 

 tions of the two elementary bodies, hydrogen and carbon : but such 

 remains do not appear so abundant in any one spot as to constitute any 

 sufficient source of these invaluable products. The power of locomotion 

 possessed by animals, and the almost universally prevalent desire for soli- 

 tude and seclusion in the times of sickness and extremity, would likewise 

 militate against any large concentration of animal matter. Only an over- 

 whelming deluge, sweeping millions of living carcasses into one common 

 pit of destruction, could apparently supply matter for the elimination of 

 bituminous substances, whether solid or fluid, in any noticeable quanti- 

 ties. I think, therefore, the opinions adverse to those commonly received 

 may be dismissed as untenable. 



It is in the vegetable laboratory that the hydro-carbons are elaborated. 

 From the soil and from the atmosphere the raw materials are taken and 

 combined in varying proportions by the invisible organs of plants ; and of 

 this fact we have much positive demonstration in the many saps and secre- 

 tions of recent trees applied by man to the economic arts, which are nearly 

 pure hydro-carbons. 



Examples : 





Carbon. 



Hydrogen. 



Oxygen. 



Gum Sarcocolla (Kesin of) 

 Rosin - - - - - 



Assafcetida ■* 

 India-rubber ... - 

 Gutta-percha - 



57'15 



75-94 

 40- 

 87-20 

 88-00 



8-34 

 1334 

 26- 



12-80 

 12-00 



3451 

 10-71 

 10- 



