Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-10-19
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7The Orlgin ofPetroieun,,

| ne OF H~etrOIe
Denton, in his popular lectures on
Geology, entitled, "Our Planet, its Past
and Future" after making some re-
marks upon ancient sources of rock-oil,
&C., thus speaks of the original causes
of these deposits:
"This is, then, no new thing; but
whence comes it? And in answer to
this question we have many theories,
some of them sufficiently ludicrous.
One suggests that, since the earth is a
huge animal. the rocks it's bones, the
water circulation in them its blood, the
grass and trees it's hair, the hills pim-
nles upon its face. and Etna and Vesu-
vius eruptive boils. all that is necessary
to obtain oil is to bore through the skin
into the blubber of the monster, and oil
very naturally flows from it. Another
supposes that, during the time of the
flood. the great whales were buried deep
under accumulations of mud, in those
places where the oil most abounds and
hence petroleum is merely antedeluvian
whale oil. 1t has been suggested that.
since the earth is at some period to be-
destroyed by fire, the oil was probably
prepared against that terrible day when
the match will be applied, and the world
burned up. !ds.
apart from these ludicrous explana-
tions, however, men of science have con-
sidered this question, and rendered their
verdict Professor Silliman says that
petroleum is uniformly regarded as a
product of vegetable decomposition.
Professor Dana says 'protroleum is bit
umous liquidresulting from the decompo-
sition of marine or land plants (mainly
the latter), and perhaps, also, of some
non -nitrogenous animal tissues By
many, it is supposed to be product of
coal; and hence the name of 'coal-oil,' so
frequently applied to it. Some suppose
that the coal, being subjected to the enor-
nous pressure of the everything beds, has
yielded oil, as a linseed cake does under
a hydraulic press; and | have seen the
theory advanced, that the coal, heated
Gas it evidently has been in the coal re-
gions of Eastern Pennsylvania, gave of
oily vapors which, rising to the cold re-
gion of the upper ar, condensed, and
subsequently, fell in oily showers, max
ing its way as best it could to the hol.
lows of the earth's interior, where the
oil-borer finds it to-day. -or----
"Facts play sad havoc with these va,
rious theories. If the oil comes from
coal it seems strange that it is so rarely
met with in coal district. have visi-
ted coal mines in England, Wales, No.
va Scotia, Cape Breton, and not less
than ten of the United States, but nev-
er saw petroleum in coal mine, or even
smelt it; and this is an article that new
er waits for an introduction, but salutes
the olfactories. at once. Of course, if
this came from coal, coal mines would
be the place in which to discover it; coal
neighborhoods should abound with it,
coal miners be familiar with, it, and
should neverbe found in rocks older than
the coal measures. The contrary of all
this is true. When it is found in the
coal measures it has been forced up from
underlying beds in which it was origi
nally contained. .s..- ..i--... ..,-
"In this country, nearly all the oil
hitherto obtained has been from beds
that lie below the coal measures, and
sometimes at a great depth below them,
ION Oil Greek, in Pennsylvania, it is
found by boring in shales and sand
stones, sometimes to depth of a thou
sand feet; these beds belonging to the
| Chemung group of the Devonian forma-
tion, and many hundred feet below the
coal measures. At Enniskillen, in Can
ada West, where the oil has at one time
come up iii springs, and OVERLOOKING
leaving thick bed of asphaltum cover
ling the ground for an acre, the limestone
in which borings are made contains
characteristic fossils of the Hamilton
group of the Devonian formation. The
oil wells in Western Kentucky, and in
some parts of Tennessee, are in the
Trenton limestone-that is, in the lower
Silurian Formations; and have seen oil
even at the base of this. The same oil
floats on the surface of a limestone
quarry near Chicago, the limestone be
longing to the Niagara group of the ST.
lurian formation, showing conclusively y
that it has no necessary connection with
coal. -- -..7' i--y a.-
Z" But may it not have been produced
from sea plants, as coal has been from
land plants, as several eminent geolo.
gists have supposed ? The quantity Of
free oil existing in the earth seems to
forbid this. l saw well in Western
Virginia which produced twenty eight
thousand barrels in ten months. From
three wells near Oil Greek, one thousand
barrels spouted in twenty -four hours
and from one, three thousand seven hun
dred and forty. The Big Phillips We'll
struck oil in October, 1861, at depth Of
four hundred and eighty feet. 1t yielded
about three thousand barrels day. The
oil rushed out with such violence that
the well could not be tubed for several
days, and it has been calculated that
forty thousand barrels of oil were lost il
the creek before it could be collected.
1.-The Noble Well struck oil in
April, 1868. Its daily yield was about
fifteen hundred barrels, at which rate il
flowed for six months.
"There must be lakes of petroleum to
render such flows possible. Where are
the bodies of fucoids or sea-weeds from
which this oil could flow? The sea.
weeds of the Silurian and Devonian
times Gin whose beds the greatest guam
tity of petroleum is found) We're SO
4 Iloose in strncture and contained so lit-