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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
parts of America. At the present time, commercially productive springs 
are yielding their oils in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, and 
Virginia. Under the name of “ Seneca oil,” a petroleum has long been 
collected by the Indians from the Seneca Lake in New York, and sold in the 
towns. 
In 1859, wells were sunk for the purpose of pumping petroleum in several 
parts of Pennsylvania, and they have been vigorously continued up to this 
time, many of the wells yielding ten barrels a day, and some even sixty 
barrels. Three hundred and forty-five wells are now bored in Oil Creek, 
Pennsylvania, the average production being fifteen barrels a day. According 
to one statement, we learn that 1,500 barrels are daily sent to New York, and 
according to another, “ as many as 2,800 barrels had been put into the 
waggons at a railway station, near the springs, in a single month.” Certain, 
however, it is that very large quantities of this mineral oil are obtained — that 
it is sold in its crude state in New York for twenty-five cents per gallon, and 
that when refined by distillation, it is extensively used for illuminating, and 
for lubricating purposes. 
At Tidionte, in Warren county, on the Alleghany, seventeen wells are in 
operation ; these are said to produce 10,000 gallons a day. At Mecca, in the 
eastern part of the state of Ohio, is a large tract of oil country. Considerable 
quantities are also produced from wells on the Little Kanawha river, in north- 
western Virginia. On the Thames river, in Canada West, the supply obtained 
from a large tract of country is extremely large. The oil wells are mere 
holes in the ground, about six inches in diameter. These holes vary 
very much in depth, some being not more than 10 feet deep, others from 
400 to 500 feet. The phenomena produced upon opening some of those 
wells are singular. One opened at Tidionte spouted oil and water to the 
height of sixty feet. 
These springs of petroleum in America are principally found in the coal 
measures, and are referred by many to a decomposition of the coal itself. 
Other authorities say, “ They do not seem to be of vegetable origin, but to have 
been formed from the animal remains of the older rocks.” These questions, 
however, require a more close investigation than they have yet received. 
Similar springs — certainly not so productive — have been found in this country, 
in Derbyshire and the Kimmeridge shales ; and the Caithness sandstones 
are to a great extent impregnated with a similar product. 
The ever-burning springs of naphtha at Baku, in Persia , are well known, and 
the Rangoon tar, as it is called, is now an important article in commerce. A 
reliable authority says, “ At Rangoon, on one of the branches of the Irawaddy, 
there are upwards of five hundred petroleum wells, which afford annually 
412,000 hogsheads of this peculiar hydro-carbon. Nearly the whole of this 
finds its way to this country, and is the source from which sherwoodole 
belmontine, and Price’s paraffine candles are largely manufactured.” 
Kerosolene . — In the Great Exhibition of 1851, a peculiar coal, then named 
Albertite, was exhibited. There has been much discussion as to the true 
character of this mineral, and eventually it has its place tolerably well defined 
by its name, A. Ibert coal. 
By distilling this coal at a temperature varying from 600° to 890° F., 
