132 
ECONOMICAL MINERALOGY. 
wells in the village of Fredonia are strongly charged with the gas. It may also be added, that 
there are frequently to be observed in this vicinity disruptions in the strata of slate, which 
have probably been caused by some expansive force exerted from beneath. 
Mr. Storke, one of the engineers on the Buffalo and Erie railroad, obligingly furnished me 
with the height of several points in the vicinity of Fredonia, from which some conclusions can 
be drawn concerning the thickness of the strata which are impregnated with this bituminous 
matter. 
It will be recollected that the gas issues through the strata of slate which form the bed of 
Lake Erie, as at Van Buren Harbour. 
The slate on the bank of the Canadawa creek, at Fredonia, through which the carburetted 
hydrogen issues, is a hundred and thirty-seven feet above the level of the lake. 
The Laona sandstone quarry, the rocks of which contain petroleum, and have a strong bitu¬ 
minous odour, is two hundred and forty-one feet above the level of the lake. 
The gas spring, four and a half miles southeast of Fredonia, is four hundred and eighty- 
one feet above the level of the lake. 
On the west branch of the Canadawa creek, six miles south of Fredonia, at the height of 
six hundred and seventy-four feet above the level of the lake, the same slate occurs. 
Three miles northeast of Jamestown, at the height of nine hundred and twenty-six feet 
above the level of the lake, is a quarry of sandstone. 
The strata of sandstone and slate are, therefore, ascertained to be nearly a thousand feet 
in thickness. 
Extending the computation to the other strata through which this gas is evolved, we find it 
at Albany upwards of four hundred feet below the surface, or about three hundred and seventy 
feet below tide, issuing through slate. 
At Vernon, in Oneida county, through the red sandstone, nearly four hundred feet above 
tide. 
At Gasport, six and a half miles east of Lockport, through limestone, nearly five hundred 
feet above tide. 
If Lake Erie is five hundred and sixty-five feet above tide, we have this same gas issuing 
from strata from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet in thickness, and not less than four 
hundred miles in extent. 
The above facts afford the most convincing proofs' that the evolution of this gas is no evi¬ 
dence of the existence of coal at any moderate depths below the surface; unless, indeed, the 
views which are at present entertained concerning the geological situation of this mineral are 
entirely erroneous. And although carburetted hydrogen frequently has its origin in beds of 
bituminous coal, the facts which have just been detailed tend to show that its occurrence does 
not necessarily depend upon such an agency. 
