BRITISH ASSOCIATION MEETING AT CAMEEIDGE. 
419 
connected with the schists, well known to geologists for the abundance of 
fossil fish found in them. In this case, therefore, there seems great proba- 
bility of the bitumen being of animal origin. No difference has been ob- 
served as to the contents obtained on distillation. 
The Ximmeridge "coal" is an unmistakable shale, but some portions 
resemble lignite. It has occasionally been used for obtaining paraffine ; but, 
being much less rich than the Scotch shales, the result is not sufficiently 
encouraging to justify a continuance of the experiment. 
It is possible that some of the other black shales known in various de- 
posits ma}^ be found available, and may come into use for distillation. 
It is evident tliat bituminous schists of various dates, some associated 
with and resembling coal, some even passing into coal, others totally un- 
like coal in every respect and far removed from it geologically, exist in 
various countries in considerable abundance, and admit of profitable dis- 
tillation at low heat for the purpose of manufacturing, illuminating, and lu- 
bricating oils and paraffine. It is important that such substances should 
be recognized as a class and not mixed up with coal, and that there should 
be some understanding as to what coal is, and in what it differs from the 
carbonaceous and bituminous minerals with which it is often loaded. 
I append a list of a fe\^' of the rocks and localities where bituminous 
schists and their products are obtained. It would certainly admit of groat 
expansion : — 
Loiver Silurian . Ireland and America (Utica Slates). 
Upper Silurian . Ditto. 
Devonian . . . Caithness schists. Shale with 30 per cent, of organic 
matter, and a residue of 8 per cent, of carbon. 
American rock oils (some localities). 
Carboniferous. f American rock oils. 
Torbane Hill and Boghead, etc., minerals. 
Lower, Middle, c' Pai*rots and cannel coal, 
and Upper . Terre honille of Belgium. 
L Vauvont or Feymorcau schists, La Vendee. 
Above coal . Autun schists. 
Permian . . . Eisleben shales and Kupfer schiefer. 5 to 20 per 
cent, of light oUs. 
Mansfeld schists. 
Lias Posidonia scliists, worked in Northern Bavaria, at 
Banz ; in Wiirtemberg, near Tubingen ; at Ora- 
vieza in Hungary. 
Oolites .... Kinimeridge shale (Dorsetshire), a shale used for dis- 
tillation to obtain paraffine, and occasionally serving 
as a very poor fuel. 
Cretaceous . . . Various schists in the Alps. 
Tertiary . . . Paper " coal," near Bonn (under the brown coal). 
Deposits beneath nummuUtic rock in the East. 
I have no doubt that a little research would remind us of many 
other localities, but these are enough to show the presence of a certain, 
quantity of hydrocarbons (the result, there can be no doubt, of organic 
matter) exhibited in this form, a part of which has sometimes been con- 
verted into coal, but which is more usually quite distinct from coal and 
unconnected with it. 
I have not alluded in this paper to the surface accumulations of petro- 
leum or to the asphalte with sand and in sandstone, nor to the chapapote of 
Cuba — a very remarkable deposit, deserving distmct notice. I have confined 
my remarks to the bituminous schists, to bring the subject within compass. 
