Columbia Democrat and Bloomsburg general advertiser. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1850-1866, 1865-06-03
The Theory of the Origin of
Coal Oil.


deDiug of drops or reservoirs of liquid coal
oil Tho lump. and CRYSTALS of graphite
found in the oldest rocks, like the Jumps
OF amber found in the newest, were doubt
less oily substances involved by sand and
mud. Flakes Of anthracite are found in
the centre of rocky crystal. Gelatinous
animals and lucous plants abounded in
shese ancient seas, and ought to have pro-
yidcd, BY their death, plenty of animal
aud vegetable bydrocalbon for the miner
al. TIE old red sandstones, like more
modern formations, present US, for our
cabinets, innumerablc hattencd fsh, con.
verted into bitumen some 10 so perfect a
state that every scale can be counted, and
every sculptured line upon them submitted
separately to tho microscope others an
undisinguishablc mass or daub Of tar
Some rocks hayo bfen SO thoroughly
charged with animal dead matter that they
emit lctid odor whenever struck, aud
are technically known as stinkstonos..--
The bitumiHous linestones aud shalcs of
many different geological ages are so many
reservoirs Of animal and vegetable oil,
produced by tho death and slow decompo-
sition of successive floral aud faunal crea-
lions, perhaps principally corallino. The
fossliIrrous black shalcs Of the eeutral
bet Of the State Of New York uudcrlic
Lake Eric, cros Ohio and Kentucky into
Tenn's'er, aud return through Indiana
and form the beds Of Lakes Michigan and
Huron. In middle kentucky the faces
of the rocks are slneared aud streaked
with Gil, fried out OF them by tho sun, so
that the surfsces are blackened as if with
tar.
Up to the horizon Of these black states,
ascending in The column of deposits, &C.
Iatinons sea organisms, both animal and
vegetable, seem to have constituted the
principal, if not the sole, apparatus for
generating petroleum. But Dawson has
lately discovered in tho sanlstoucs over
them true angio'pcrmous exogonous tree,
not much, if any, lower in the scale of de-
vclopment than those CT which our forests
are composed. Conflrous trees began
also to abound, and coal beds to be depos-
itcd in groups. Thence the higher we as
cend towards and through the second and
the third or great coal mo asures, the more
abundant became the vestiges of fresh wa
ter and land vegetation, until in the tree
stumps of the coal beds Of Nova Scotia we
find small land animals. The moses and
forms, the ru hes and reeds, minute and
gigantic, of which the coal beds came,
suggest the vegetable origin of coal oil. -
For it Is near or between the three sys-
tens of coal measures which succeed each
other in ascending from the top of the up
per ailuriau to the coal measures proper
that the amazing discoveries Of sublerra,
iiean reservoirs OF OIL had taken place. 1t
is impossible to suppress the suspicion that
petroleum is . product Of the slow dccom-
position Of vegetable tissue.
But the oil wells are net sunk in coal
measures, but through them at the edge of
the great coal area. The oil is never found
in coal beds nor have the subtcrrancan
reservoirs of oil apparently any connexion
with coal beds, nor even with coal states,
or bituminou8 shales or pyroschists, as
they are called. Black slate, oannel, fat
coal, like Ignite, peat aud living WOOD
will yield the oils aud gases by distilla"
ton, bat the geological di,tinction must
be carefully preserved between the free Pc
troleGm Of the rocks and wells and the
distilled petroleum Of tbe CID oil works.
The connection of the oil regions with
the coal basins Of western Pennsylvania
aud Virginia, eastern Ohio and Kentucky
is, in good measure, geographical de.
coption. The Oil creek rocks, dipping
southward, pass 500 or coo feet below the
coal measures. The nearest coal bed 10
the moro northern springs occurs on the
highest hill tops, many miles away. The
hills in tho vicinity of some of the wells
are capped by tho eonglomerate base OF
the coal measures at least a hundred feet
thick. The shalos and sandstoncs Of the
valley belonging to formations X, TX al d
MIL descending, called by the New Yorl
gcoogiss the Catskill, Chemupg, and Por'
tage groups, extending over all the south
ern counties of western New York, The
southern dip carries down these oil.boar-
ing rocks, and the wells must deepen il
tho same direction. Mr.. Ridgcwsy re-
ports (July 10, ls62) the lowest 'oil'bear.
ing sand rock, as Gaping the hills nea
Waterford, on lie Booaif creek, and til
same sandstoncs appear on Big Frcpc
creek, full of plant remains