240 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. V., No. 111. 



me so forcibly of the dire destruction of war as the 

 scenes I beheld in and around Bradford at the close 

 of the census year; and nothing else but the neces- 

 sities of an army commands such a complete sacrifice 

 of every other interest, or leaves such a scene of ruin 

 and desolation." 



One important reason for the wonderfully 

 rapid development of oil districts is thus forci- 

 bly presented : — 



" The owner of oil territory must have it drilled, 

 or it will be exhausted by his neighbors drilling a 

 cordon of wells around his property. After it is 

 drilled, the well must flow until the pressure of gas is 

 exhausted; and after the oil has stopped flowing, if 

 the owner does not pump, his neighbor's pumps will 

 drain his territory; and if he 'pulls out,' the law 

 compels him to fill his well with sand, and ruin it 

 forever, to prevent the public injury resulting from 

 letting surface-water into the oil-sand. There is, 

 therefore, no other alternative presented to the un- 

 fortunate possessor of oil territory but to drill and 

 produce, whatever the price of oil may be." 



The encyclopedic character of this report is 

 very clearly shown in the second and third 

 parts, in which the statistics of the manufac- 

 ture and uses of petroleum are preceded by 

 historical and descriptive accounts, either ori- 

 ginal or compiled, of the apparatus, methods, 

 products, and various applications in the arts ; 

 the sections on the use of petroleum for lubri- 

 cating and illuminating purposes being espe- 

 cially full. 



The report on coke is restricted to the coke 

 made as a direct product, and used in blast- 

 furnaces, and does not include that produced in 

 the manufacture of gas. Nor are the coking 

 coals taken into account, except incidentally. 

 This is, like petroleum, essentially a new in- 

 dustry in the United States, the annual value 

 of the coke produced having increased from 

 $189,184 in 1860, to $5,359,489 in 1880 ; and 

 this is the first time it has appeared prominent- 

 ly in a census report. 



The statistics of production for the census 

 3 7 ear are very full, and are followed by a his- 

 torical and descriptive account of the industry 

 in the different states and in foreign countries. 

 In the concluding sections, the preparation of 

 the coal, and the various forms of coke-ovens, 

 are described in detail. The statistics show 

 that coke is probably, by weight, the cheapest 

 of all manufactured products, selling for less 

 than two dollars per ton ; and that it may be 

 considerably cheapened in the future by the 

 utilization of the waste-products, which greatly 

 exceed in value the coal from which the coke 

 is made. 



The census of the building-stones and quarry 

 industiy of the United States was planned and 



organized by the late Dr. George W. Hawes. 

 His untimely death led to a much greater 

 division of labor than is apparent in the prep- 

 aration of the reports on petroleum and coke, 

 the list of the more prominent contributors to 

 this report comprising nearly a dozen names ; 

 and, what is more to be regretted, it also ne- 

 cessitated the curtailment of the strictly scien- 

 tific portion of the work. The most noticeable 

 feature of this report, from the scientific stand- 

 point, is the absence of any evidence of a se- 

 rious attempt to improve the really splendid 

 opportunity which the thoroughly representative 

 collection made by the agents of the census 

 bureau presents to investigate the building- 

 stones of this country. The census reports are 

 far from uniform in this respect ; some classes 

 of products, such as the woods, cotton, wool, 

 etc., being worked up much more thoroughly. 



We do not find in this report any systematic 

 statement of the composition, microscopic 

 structure, texture, specific gravity, crushing 

 strength, porosit} 7 , chemical behavior, etc., of 

 our building-stones. In short, the report pre- 

 sents no data forming a basis of comparison 

 b} T which, to take a practical view of the sub- 

 ject, we can determine the relative merits for 

 particular uses of the products of the fifteen 

 hundred and twent} T -five important quarries 

 operated in the United States during the census 

 year. Almost the only distinctly scientific 

 sections of the report are the chapter on the 

 microscopic structure of building-stones, by 

 Mr. Merrill, and that on the durabilhy of build- 

 ing-stones in New- York City and vicinity, by 

 Professor Julien. But the former is short, 

 and on the text-book plan, with but few ref- 

 erences to the stones of particular localities. 

 The figures are few and unsatisfactor} 7 : the 

 component minerals not being sufficiently dis- 

 tinguished by colors, or otherwise. And, al- 

 though Professor Julien' s essaj- is excellent so 

 far as it goes, } T et it is only a partial and local 

 treatment of the subject. 



The student of economic geology will, how- 

 ever, find chapters four to seven, which 

 constitute the main part of the report, very 

 valuable as reservoirs of field-observations, 

 notwithstanding the general lack of experi- 

 mental or laboratory data. These chapters 

 are devoted to quanr methods, the statistics 

 of production during the census year, de- 

 scriptions of quarries and quarry regions, and 

 stone-construction in cities. The thirtj^-two 

 chromolithographic plates which conclude this 

 volume are one of its most attractive features. 

 They show the appearance of polished surfaces 

 of our handsomest marbles, granites, etc. 



