44 
[ASSE MBLY 
matter occurs in patches, having more the appearance of detached vege- 
table impressions, than of a regular stratum.* 
Through fissures in this rock in the creek near the village, are every 
where to be seen bubbles of gas rising through the water. The evolu- 
tion, however, is most abundant at the bridge, and about three-quarters 
of a mile below. The gas, when collected in a proper vessel and fired, 
burns with a white flame tinged with yellow above, and blue near the 
orifice of the burner. Its illuminating power is not inferior to that of 
ordinary coal gas. When mixed with atmospheric air and ignited, it 
explodes violently. It contains no admixture of sulphuretted hydro- 
gen. 
The illuminating power of this gas and its abundant supply, suggest- 
ed the idea ot its employment in lighting the village. A copious dis- 
charge of the gas was observed issuing from a fissure in the rock which 
forms the bed of the creek, which it was thought could be diverted to a 
boring on the bank. A shaft was accordingly sunk through the slate 
about twenty-two feet in depth, which occasionally passed through 
layers of the bituminous substance already described, and the result was 
that the gas left the creek and issued through the shaft. Ey means of 
a tube, the gas was now conducted to a gasometer, and from thence to 
different parts of the village. The gasometer had a capacity of about 
two hundred and twenty cubic feet, and was usually filled in about fif- 
teen hours, affording a sufficient supply of gas for seventy or eighty 
lights. 
Bubbles of the same gas are here and there seen rising through the 
water in this creek for nearly three quarters of a mile below the village. 
Eut the largest quantity is evolved at the latter point. It was not pos- 
sible for me with any apparatus which I could command, to determine 
the amount of gas given out at this place in a given time; but bubbles 
rise with great rapidity from an area of more than twenty feet square, 
and I should probably be warranted in asserting that it is five or six 
times greater than that obtained at the village. 
At Van Euren harbor, on Lake Erie, four miles from Fredonia, bub- 
bles of inflammable gas may be seen rising through the water, when the 
lake is calm, a rod or two from the shore. In the town of Sheridan, 
six and a half miles from Fredonia, the same gas is also abundantly 
evolved in various places. And a short distance below Portland har- 
* This rock has been called bituminous limestone ; but I could find no specimens that effer- 
vesced with acids. ^ 
