Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1893-07-21
Petroleum..
The Probable Origin of this Curiou
Product of the Earth.


Product of the Earth.
TO a recent number of the New York Sunday
Press, Prof. Ira Remsen contributes this discus
sion to the most probable theory of the origin
Of petroleum
In the year 1890 1000, 900 barrels of
petroleum were taken from the earth in the
United States and a somewhat smaller
quantity in the neighborhood of the Cas-
plan sea and other places. Every year the
quantity taken increases, and this increase
has been going on for years. The supply
seems to be ineXhaustible. Where one well
gives out others take its place, and there
is no fear that the end will be reached.
Whence comes this enormous supply of the
oil? Under what conditions and from
what materials was it formed? Are the
processes which gave rise to it now in pro-
gress or was it formed in ages long past?
These are some of the questions that will
suggest themselves to every thoughtful
reader, but, like many other questions,
they are more easily asked than answered.
The theory most commonly accepted is
that petroleum is of animal origin, and that
it has been formed from the remains of
marine animals of earlier geological epochs,
particularly of fish, corals, mussels, etc.
animals do, and that they have lived and
died since they first came upon the earth,
Just as other animals have. What has be-
come of those that died? When an animal
dies on the surface of the earth changes
soon take place in its body. 1t is decom-
posed as we say. If left to itself the body
gradually disappears and very little is left.
The substances formed from the body are
to a great extent carried away in the air,
where they serve as food for plants. If,
however, the body of dead animal is pro-
tected from the action of the air, as when
it is buried in the earth or under water,
| changes of different kind take more slowly
than in the air.
Gradually it is decomposed, but the prod
ucts formed cannot be carried away as read
/ ily. Now, it has been found that, where
/ animals have been buried in moist earth, a
| fatty substance is often left behind long
| after the body as whole has undergone
| decomposition. Such observations have
! been made in the case of sheep that had
been buried ten years, and in that of a hog
! that had been buried fifteen years. In the
latter case even the bones of the animal
had disappeared. These and many other
similar observations show clearly that fats
are left behind after animal bodies have
undergone decomposition under the earth
or under water. But this fat is not petro-
leum. Some other influence besides those
that lead to the ordinary decomposition
must have been at work to change the fats
into the oils that make up petroleum.
Suppose, now, the fatty remains of host
of marine animals TO have been formed in
some part of the earth. Suppose, further,
that by some means the temperature OF
r II II. Il. L. II,
enough to effect further change in the fats,
what would become of them? This can be
tested by experiments. And qNite recently
a German chemist has made the test. He
put into a still half a ton of fish oil, OBJ
tanned from the menhaden caught so eX-
tensively on the coast of this country. He
then heated the oil in such way that
strong pressure was exerted on its surface,
and collected the oil that passed out of the
vessel. This was found to resemble crude
petroleum very strikingly 1t had brown
ish color, boiled at about the same temper
ature as petroleum, and analysis showed
that it had about the same composition
This experiment is of great value, as it is
the only one that has ever furnished any
thing like petroleum by artificial methods
1t does not, of course, prove that petroleum
was formed in the earth from fish oil, bu
il shows that it is a possible way in which
il could have been formed; and wheT
other facts are taken into consideration
this view becomes highly probable.
It is certainly interesting to think tina
we are now using in our lamps an oil tina
comes from fishes that inhabited thu
waters of the earth ages and ages befor
man was born. When we think of the ag'
of this globe, of the thousands of genera
tions of animals that must have inhabited
it, and that must have died and contribu
ted to the store of oil in the earth, it n
longer seems surprising that such immens
quantities of oil have been found. We ar
drawing upon the savings of past ages o
J untold length. 1t is very much as it
with coal, but with this important differ
ence, that petroleum is probably of anima
origin, while coal is of vegetable origin
In the coal beds we have the remains o
vegetable matter collected through ages il
the mighty forests of old.
Besides the theory already mentione
many others have been put forward to az
count for the formation of petroleum. On
of these is that the oil was formed froI
vegetable matter at the same time as cos
and that it was the turpentine of primevi
pine forests. According to another theor
l petroleum has been formed neither frol
plants nor from animals, but is produt
, of the action of gases, such as carbonic aci
gas and water vapor, upon each other III
der great pressure and at volcanic hea
This view has been held by many, an
among them some whose opinions al
worthy of respect,
Deans Rheumatic Pills absolutely Gu
e rheums tbs II aud neur lgia Entirely yegetabl