Editorial Comment. 373 
unchanged so that there is in reality no need to look for any 
other source of petroleum. 
Mr. W. Anderson, in his presidential address to the Section 
of Mechanics of the British Association at Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
developed to his audience Prof. Mendeleef's theory, and appar- 
ently with approval. In his sketch, which is somewhat 
hypothetical, he follows his leader in presupposing as a neces- 
sary condition, the existence of iron in immense quantities in 
the interior of the earth, both pure and in the form of carbides. 
Water penetrating the crust is supposed to react on these sub- 
stances and so to develop a hydrocarbon at the expense of its 
own oxygen. The new hydrocarbon thus produced is carried 
up with the steam into which the water has been transformed 
and deposited as soon as the cooler strata are reached. 
It is scarcely necessary to mention that the data here 
assumed are not only unproved, but highly improbable. In 
fact their assumption almost amounts to a return to the old 
hypothesis of Sir Humphrey Davy, who, in his enthusiasm at 
having discovered the remarkable properties of potassium, 
imagined a vast storehouse of his new metal in the bowels of 
the earth, by the aid of which he could explain all the phe- 
nomena of volcanic action on chemical principles. 
Prof. Mendeleef further endeavors to support his theory by 
asserting that oil-bearing regions always lie near to or run 
parallel with mountain ranges, as in the case of the Appala- 
chians and the Caucasus. In the synclinal cracks, widening 
below, which he says must exist in such regions, lie the accu- 
mulations of oil and gas. Now it is well known in America that 
a fissured region, especially a synclinal, is barren ground, and 
that a disturbed region is also devoid of oil and gas. Both 
occur only in strata almost horizontal and usually along 
lines of very slight anticlinal arching. So that geology 
aflFords no ground whatever for the new theory. 
Moreover there are exceedingly productive districts in the 
western hemisphere, such as those in Indiana, in Ohio, and in 
Ontario where there can be no such Assuring as is required by 
Prof. Mendelei'f. The regions in question lie at a distance 
from all mountains and all disturbance capable of producing 
fissures and in the midst of a wide extent of nearly horizon- 
tal and uncontorted rocks not varving from the level more 
