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368 burnt in this way, and will be a valuable article for lighting the street lamps in the future cities of Ohio.” It is not a little singular that, with the sources of supply thus pointed out and the useful application of the petroleum understood, it's value should have remained unappreciated, and at the expiration of more than 35 years be at last perceived through the progress of experiments made upon the distillation of bituminous shales and coal. The success attending these, and the similarity of the crude oil to the natural petroleum, caused attention to be directed to the sources of this with the view of testing the capacity of the supplies, and applying to the natural oil the methods of purification invented for the artificial. The first movement made in this direction was in 1854, by Messrs. Eveleth and Bissell of New York, who secured the right to the upper spring on Oil creek, and organized a company in New York. The quality of the oil was tested and a report made upon it by Prof. B. Silliman, jr. No progress was made in establishing the business until December, 1857, when Messrs. Bowditch and Drake of New Haven undertook to search for the oil. Col. E. L. Drake removed to Titusville on Oil creek, and in the winter of 1858-'9 completed his arrangements for boring into the rock below the bed of the creek. The work advanced very slowly, and it was not until Aug. 26, 1859, that oil was struck at the depth of 71 ft. The drill suddenly sank into a cavity in the rock, and the oil rose within 5 in. of the surface. A small pump being introduced, a supply of oil was obtained, amounting to 400 gallons a day; and with a larger pump the flow was increased to 1,000 gallons a day. Though a steam engine was applied to the work and kept in constant operation, the supply continued uninterrupted for weeks. This success gave a new value to every spot where oil had ever been found or which was thought likely to produce it. The narrow valleys of the watercourses, excavated 300 or 400 ft. through the piles of horizontal strata, had been its natural outlets, and along these great numbers of wells were soon commenced. Oil creek below Titusville, the valley of the Alleghany from below Franklin up into Warren co., and the banks of French creek, were soon explored by wells, and around the most successful of these villages rapidly sprung up, and extraordinary business activity was introduced into regions that had been among the most retired and quiet portions of the state. Next to Oil creek the valley of the Alleghany, from Tidioute in Warren co. S. to the Venango line, contained the most productive wells, and others of great yield were opened in the town of Franklin. So numerous were these undertakings, that the village presented a curious aspect with the numbers of tall derricks, employed in boring the artesian wells, scattered among the gardens and house lots. Before the close of the year 1860, according to one published statement,

the number of wells had amounted to full 2,000, and 74 of these were producing daily 1,165 barrels of 40 gallons each. In Allegany co., N. Y., about a mile N. W. of the town of Cuba, operations were begun about the first of January, 1861, near a famous great pool, which had always been known as the oil spring. Before the iron pipe driven into the ground had reached the rock, oil mixed with water gushed violently up through it. On the margin of the coal field in Trumbull co., Ohio, at a place called Mecca, 44 m. from Cleveland and 60 from Erie, Pa., wells were first sunk in the spring of 1860, the encouragement for making the trial consisting in the fact of the water in the wells being strongly impregnated with oil. In West Virginia wells have been successful in Ritchie and Wirt cos. In 1840 a spouting well of oil at Burkesville, Ky., was described, and in 1844 Mr. Murray mentioned the petroleum of Enniskillen, Canada.—Various opinions have been expressed concerning the origin of petroleum. Until quite recently, all of these theories were based upon the assumption that it has been derived from vegetable or animal organisms. Some have supposed that it is the product of the decomposition of woody fibre, by which more of the carbon and less of the hydrogen has been evolved than by the decomposition which has produced coal. Again, it has been supposed to be the product of the natural distillation of pyrobituminous shales and coals. Lesquereux attributes its origin to the partial decomposition of low forms of marine vegetation. Berthelot has advanced the theory that by complex chemical changes at present taking place in the interior of the earth, petroleum is being continually set free. It may be assumed that petroleum is the normal or primary product of the decomposition of marine animal or vegetable organisms, chiefly the former, and that nearly all other varieties of bitumen are products of a subsequent decomposition of petroleum, differing both in kind and degree. The occurrence of petroleum in the lower palaeozoic rocks of Pennsylvania and Canada, which contain no traces of land plants, shows that it has not in all cases been derived from terrestrial vegetation, but may have been formed from marine plants or animals; an opinion further strengthened when we find in rocks of tertiary age, in which fossil remains of the higher marine animals occur in abundance, a petroleum comparatively rich in nitrogen. Such is the character of the petroleum issuing from the miocene of the coast ranges of southern California. In Trinidad a thick oil (maltha), with asphalt, occurs with lignite, and specimens of the vegetable material are found partly changed to oil and penetrated by it, and having its cells looking as if it had been corroded by it. Though we obtain oils resembling petroleum by the destructive distillation of coals, shales, and even animal substances, its occurrence is not confined to localities contiguous to large deposits of