The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1862-07-15

"a wa" Ncbiho ~ VAL sup ilft OF inc
end. Il is more interesting Than a rq-
nance, full ofpoetry his-..nd humor.
From Morchanie
Petroleum., old and New.
pErRoLEUM belongs TO an extensive fami-
ly, ancient IS The hills, and honorable in
history, whose surname is piigmen. 70
has mixed and mingled with earthly
matters, with luids u with gases, an
there's a ine tribe of halr-b'ayls indeed,
and IL is hard work 20 tell who's who. In
y pure state, however, they may be con-
fined TO four varieties. The most solid,
which varies from the hardness OF stone
to the elasticity Of india-rubbcr is btu
men proper; the next in density, more
plastic and pitchy, in asphaltum; the
third, a thick fluid, is Petroleum: the last
and most liquid is naptha It tGhes o
good many chemical formulas 70 express
tho precise component parts Of each va
rlety. Scientific people, who know 80
much more than the fest Of us, dotc upon
whole batlalions of initial letters, each
with n little fraction tied Go its heel
but If they had been oat Of school ever
80 many yeats, and had NOT studied much
but life since, and that in % limited cdi-
ton, they would be satisfied, as We are,
with knowing that the substance in
question contains a great amount of car
bon, a s~prinkling OF hydrogen, a breath
Of oxygen, and sometimes ths merest sus-
picion OF nitrogen.
The difference between the most solid
and most liquid forms, is 50 slight, chem-
ically, as 10 be hardly worth mentioning,
the .emperature Of the air, and the length
Of lime for which they have been expos
ed 10 it, changing their consistency very
greatly. They are found in widely sep
arated localities all over the world, and
are almost invariably associated with
/ Servings Of sulphurous or salt water, and
with jets OF carburett hydrogen gas. In
SOM places they ooze slowly through the
soil in scanty drops, or eNude through
assures I'm the rocks; in others, they buo-
bic up ia quiet springs, or spout out from
their GuhterrancOus reservoirs with the
vehemence of q fountain. Az they spread
away from the point Of cgress they cool
and harden, until they frequently be-
come entirely solidifcd, from which il
may be inferred hat all the masses Of
bitumen found upon the surface Of the
earth, or within its depths, were once 10
a liquid state.
The very earliest record we have Of a
bituminous district, is in the account of
the Vale OF Siddim, now sunk beneath
the waves of the Dead Sea, with its four
a%ourishing cities. 1t is said to'have been
full of slime pits" so that when the
kings Of Sodom and Gomorrah were pur-
.saed by the four kings Of the East they
sthere and persisted. 10 may be that
doomcd cities themselves were built
with the asphaltic cement, so much used
those early times, aud that this, with
The bituminOus nature of the soil about
them, rendered the whole valley a ready
prey to the ravages Of the ayenging flames,
for when the fat Of distraction had gone
forth, and "Abram arose and looked to-
ward the land of the plain, tie smoke OF
the country went up as the smoke of a
furnace" Volcanic action deyasted The
fair valley, and sunk it into the earth, and
the Dead Sea covered itlike a vast shroud
Modern pilgrims to the Holy Land, are
not-satislied like those Of old, with bring
ing back a scollop-s shell or n branch Of
palm; they return with whole Golfers Of
curiosities, conspicuous among which are
the peculiar Greek r~Osaries and ornaments
made in the converts at Jerusalem, on
of hardened pieces of asphaltum, from
the shores of the Dead Sea. The asphal.
tum is found in profusion upon the bar
rem margin OF the sea, or floating in it,
dense, bitter waters. On the southern
shore are chasms and pits filed wild
Shiny, half fused bitumen, where unwarl
travellers have been lost. Hardly o YES.
tige of vegetation can be seen upon th.
blighted soil, and mountains and plain.
are alike dreary and doath-like. lt is
wilderness Of sand and salt, rock an,
asphaltum thswdcsert is all about IL, an,
there is no 2bitation near, eNeep
I the desolal of Mar Saba, who's.
mournful belftQ . nightly requiem fo
the souls Of les.
The era d4f5 first use Of bitumeu
dates back several hundred years bofor
: the record of its existence in the Vale o
Siddim. The bull rs of the Tower O
3 Babel used bricks made of clcv, an,
"slime for murtari-A little below TIA
r heap Of ruins sur ed TO be those Of tn
= half built Tower upon the right bank O
d the Eupbrates, are the celebrated Foun
! tains of Is. Hero the Petroleum has bub
j. bled up, brown and oily, from the tim
If the hood TO the present day, cooling a
it leaves the fountain. tall it congeals int
acphaltum. Alexander, and Trajan, an
n Julian, IN turn wondered at this EIargt
OF nature. IL was from this sourc,
, without a doubt, that the builders Of Ba
bel gathered thei Shiny mortgr and ID
y B~aLyloniaus made from IL an .mperisha
e bic cement, with which all their am2zin
y works were built. The wallso OF Babylo
j. Wer. made with 10, those mighty wal.
/, which enclosed two hundred and twenty
p tive square miles OF land, aud the pCpu
n laiion Of alittle planet; they were nearl
r. @ hundred feet thick at the base, so broa
"a ug the to- ihateight horses abrsas, C. nal
run there, and as tall as two Magyar
- Falls. Ncb%uchadncZZar was the erCi
n b. icr- king Of ancient history; his ski
Il &c. .enCb and carried Gu the maryelot
o. temple OF Beius, he hemmed in the er
/, croaching w"ters of The Iigris and Er
pirates, VITA dykes Of solid masonry; ]
Il built o reservoir, IA hundred and lJrt
miles in circumference aud m0de a va,
T. canal broad and deep as a river and i'
hundred miles long, which stretched troI
the Euphrates TO the Persian Gulf 4
Is these were l.'' and comcnt1d with q
q imperishablc asphaitum. With this 70
he built the royal palace, indulging b
~ kingly fancy with a mouse six miles
circumfereuCc,and ipclosed BY three wal
y 10 was an CX n,agant fancy, even for
King, and the royal husband had hardl
satisfied it, when the royal wife TOOK
q, a fancy too. Queen Amytis wanted
garden; .sle was Tired of nv dnIl play