The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1871-10-20
GENERTION OF PETROLEUM.

The recent developments of the re-
productive power of petroleum wells
that had been for some years abandon
ed because they were believed to have
been long ago exhausted, Is not alone q
matter of value to the owners of the
territory that was until lately presumed
to be incapable of further production,
but it affords more trustworthy basis
than any the world has hitherto been
able to obtain for forming on approx
imately correct opinion concerning the
chemical process whereby petroleum is
generated. Until within a few days, q
popular opinion prevailed that petrole-
um, in spite of its name, was the pro-
duct of coal, and so nearly was this
idea general among most people, that
many foreign receivers of petroleum
are still accustomed to order it as f'coal
OIL" The belief, however, that the
teerene oil of Pennsylvania and Canada
is exclusively the product of bitumin-
GUS coal may now safely be pronounced
to be an error. There is certainly no
evidence that coal is not one of the sub
stances from which petroleum may be
distilled; but, at the same time, it is q
somewhat strange fact, allowing o
proper degree of credit to the belief
that coal does enter into the compost
ton of petroleum, that no coal beds
susceptible of being worked are known
to exist within nifty miles of the oil
producing territory. Again, it is q
manifest and recognized fact that car
bon does predominant as an intergsl
essence of petroleum and the other
facts that the oil territory of Pcnnsyl-
vania is surrounded by beds of bitum.
inous coal, renders it imminently rea-
sonable to believe that coal enters large
ly-if not, indeed, moro largely than
any other substance-into the process
of distillation whereby petroleum is
produced.
Petroleum is entirely a mineral Oil.
But whatever may be the number and
chemical variety of the minerals from
which it is formed, the distillation of 1t
is more intimately associated with lime
stone than with any other mineral.
Sandstones Is also found in boring Oil
wells, but 1t is from the pores of lime
stone that, in the chemical process of
extracting oil from the minerals found
in connection with its production, the
greatest quantity of petroleum Is taken.
1t is singular that in boring for oil no
coal has ever been found, even in small
est quantities, white sand, sandstone
and limestone abound. The inference,
therefore, cannot be escaped that petro-
leum is the product of the distillation
of at least two. and probably more than
three distinct mineral properties. In
the presses of manufacturing refined
oil, the crude article yields three differ
ent minerals. So far as concerns the
contribution by coal of al integer in
the chemical process by which petrole-
UNI is produced in and from certain
geological strata, 1t may be remarked
that the ''shale" oil produced from BIZ
luminous coal in England is very diff
ferent from American petroleum, In
that American naptha must be used in
order that the latter may be burned in
lamps. Another fact that faYors the
inference that petroleum is mainly pro-
duced from or generated through lime
stone, Is that petroleum has been ex-
tracted from limestone found in the
neighborhoods of Chicago and of Terre
Haute, Indiana. In regard to the pro-
ductive powers recently developed In
the Pennsylvania territory, believed to
have been exhausted, II affords two
favorable presumptions: First, IS q
partial assurance that the distillation of
petroleum is continuous process; and
next, that the formerly abandoned ter
rltory was given mp because the ma
chineTy for extracting petroleum from
the earth exceeded in its power Of ex-
hausting the duid, the genitiye powers
by which it is produced.-Hon Age.