The Lafayette gazette. [volume] (Lafayette, La.) 1893-1921, 1901-05-18
A BAY OF OIL
Underlying St. Martin and
Branching on to Lafayette.
kapides, VermiliOn and
CalCAsieu.

Nearly forty years ago man
named Paschal Beverly Randolph
wrote book entitled ."After Death:
The Disembodiment of Man." The
book was copyrighted and pub
lished in Boston in 1868 and in
1870 third edition was issued.
Judging from the fact that Mr..
Randolph's book was published
three times during the first decade
of it's existence it is safe to say that
it enjoyed large measure of popu-
larity. However, little or nothing
was heard of the book in this sec
ton until the oil excitement caused
people to search everywhere for
anything which seemed to offer any
light on the subject uppermost in
the public mind. Mr.. Randolph's
opinion, expressed in 1866, will be
very interesting at this time when
the discovery of oil in Calcasieu
and ST. Martin establishes the fact
that that opinion was based upon
scientific observations made long
before the existence of oil in these
parts was even thought of. The fol-
loving excerpts are from Mr.. Ran
dolph's book:
81 am, at this writing of the first
edition of this book, here in the
carpenter shop of Auguste Landry,
in ST. Martinville, ST. Martin Par
ish, Louisiana, May 18th, 1866.
| over 40 years Of age. Twenty-Five
of those years have mainly been
spent in the one single pursuit of
knowledge on the subject whereof
am now writing, concerning
Psy ch1cal Man. 1 have sought for
this knowledge in twelve States of
this Union; in France, Ireland,
Scotland. England, Turkey, Egypt,
Syria, Central and Western Amer
lea, Arabia, Mexico, and Califor-
MIA"
eve see lump Of granite, and
know that time and attrition will
wear it down to sand; sand will
divide up until we have alluvial
soil, out of which comes vegeta-
ton, in various degrees of refine
ment, from the coarse cryptoga-
mia to the most splendid flower
and delicious fruit. Were it pos
sible to behold the procession Of
the Flora pass before us in one
glorious panorama, we would be-
hold gigantic ferns and grasses,
f1ourishing in miraculous fertility
of ages; heavy carbonaceous plants,
chemical laboratories of the first
order, extracting the grosser sub
stances from the air and celebrating
oxygen to fill their places. Presently
ages having elapsed they fall and
rot, making new soil and richer,
out of which comes higher order
of plants, chemical laboratories of
the second, producing still more
marked changes in the atmosphere
and climate. Presently, as the pic
ture unfolds, we behold orders,
genera, and species succeeding each
other at every tick of eternity's
clock; finer, fairer trees and flowers
now deck the scene, and animal life
now comes in as chemical labora-
tories of still higher order. For
if vegetation alone were adequate
and waters for the abode of incarn-
ate mind, there would have been no
need of animals, and there being
no demand, there would have been
no supply. But vegetation could
not do it; nor could single species
of animal do it, but it required mill
lions of species Of differently organ
lied animals to prepare the world
for man; to cook the air and cleanse
it; to purify the waters, and render
them fit for higher uses, Just as it
required a m lion varied flora to
throw down the noxious vapors,
condense them into fibre, to be
converted by and by into coal beds
and petroleum lakes-just like the
mighty bay Of oil now underlying
the parish Of St. Martin, La, and
which branches off to Rapides, Yer
million, Lafayette, and Calcasieu-
a body large and deep enough to
furnish fuel to the world for CEN
tury."
'sFluStuat nee mer gitur.''