FOSSIL HTDRO-CARBONS, THE SOURCE OE LIGHT, HEAT, COLOUR, ETC. 151 



sideration, the more so from, the patience with which they have borne it. 

 This privileged district has never been remarkable for its wealth of pros- 

 perity, but it is now steeped in poverty and ruin. The other wine districts of 

 Europe seem to have suffered less, and to have recovered entirely from the 

 visitation. The yield of the Mediterranean vineyards has been abundant, 

 and generally of fine quality. The vintage through France and Germany 

 has been, it is true, most deficient ; but this is attributable to the remarkably 

 low temperature and constant rains which prevailed during the summer, 

 not to the inroads of the oidium. In Portugal, this disease seems to have 

 undergone little or no abatement. 



In the Baixo Corgo, it has been so intense, that some quintas, exclu- 

 sively dependent on wine, and once producing 200 pipes, in 1860 yielded 

 200 almudes ;* in spite of the heavy outlay entailed by the cultivation and 

 partial sulphuration of the plants. Some lands have even been sequestered 

 by the Government for arrears of taxes. On the other hand, farmers who 

 could afford to sxdphur thoroughly, have obtained as much as half crops. 



FOSSIL HYDRO-CARBONS, THE SOURCE OF LIGHT, HEAT, 

 COLOUR, &c. 



BY THOMAS D. ROCK. 



Part II. 

 Any subject, to be well understood, must have a clear and compre- 

 hensible basis ; for the value and beauty of all superstructural argument 

 depends mainly upon the soundness of the foundation fact. The theme 

 upon which I am now about to dwell a second time, in continuation of 

 the paper at page 64 of this volume, is, as regards its starting-point, fully 

 free from obscurity ; for the fossil hydro-carbons are clearly derived from 

 organic sources, a truth so manifest that I presume it is never called in 

 question. This simple pivot fact, whilst establishing the common origin 

 of the hydro-carbons, also easily accounts for the marvellous resemblance 

 which they bear to each other, and invests the subject with intenser interest, 

 from the knowledge that materials so unattractive to the external senses 

 of man were once teeming with life and beauty. The ceaseless mutations 

 of matter, without any loss, are likewise well illustrated by the changed 

 condition of those organisms from which the hydro-carbons have receded ; 

 and it is in such kaleidoscopes of science, perpetually rotating, that we 

 learn something of the Infinite, and gain deeper experience of the power, 

 and wisdom, which sustains and preserves our busy globe and all its 

 belongings. 



* Twenty-one and a half to the farmer's pipe. 



