Year: 1872

The recent development of the repro ductlve power of petl oleum wells that had been for some years abandoned be- cause they were believed to be exhausted, is not alone matter of value to the owners of the territory that was until iately 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 an approximately correct opinion con corning the chemical process whereby petroleum is generated. Until witbin a few days, popular opinion prevailed that petroleum, in spite of it's name, was the product of coal and so nearly was this idea general among majority of people, thet many foreign receivers of petroleum are still accustomed to order it as As coal oil" The belief, however, that the terrene oil of Pennsylvania and Canada is exclusively product of bitu- minous coal may now safely be pro- nounced to be an error. There is cer- tainly no evidence that coal is not one of the substances from which petroleum is distilled but, at the same time, it is 8 somewhat strange fact, allowing a proper degree of credit to the belief that coal does not enter into the composition of petroleum, that no coal beds suseept1- ble of being worked are known to exist within fifty miles of the l-producing territory. Again, it is a manifest and recognized fact that carbon does pre- leum and the other fact that the oil territory of Pennsylvania is surrounded by beds of butuminous coal, renders it 1>1 L< I,o1 41ol T enters largely-if not, indeed, more largely than any other substance-into the process of distillation whereby pe- troleum is produced.

 Petroleum is certainly mineral oil. But whatever may be the number and chemical variety of the minerals from which it is formed, the distillation of it is more intimately associated with l1me- stone than with any other mineral. Sandstone is also found in boring oil wells, but it is from the pores of lime. stone that, in the chemical process of extracting oil from the minerals found in connection with it's production, the greatest quantity of petroleum is taken. It is singular that, in boring for oil, nc coal has ever been found, even in the smallest quantities, while sand, sandstone and limestone abound. The inference, therefore, cannot be escaped that petro leum is the product of the distillation oi at least two, and probably of more than three, distinct mineral properties. In the process of manufacturing refined oil, the crude article yields three different products-naphtha, kerosene and resi-, dunn, 8 fact which certainly supports the belief that crude oil is the product of three different minerals. So far as concerns the contribution by coal of an integer in the chemical process by which petroleum is produced in and from cer- tain geological strata, it may be remarked that the Astshade"- oil produced from bi- luminous coal in England is very differ. ent from American petroleum in that the American naphtha must be used in order that the latter may be burned ir lamps. Another fact that favors 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 Terrt Haute, Ind. In regard to the reproduc Pennsylvania territory believed to have been exhausted, it affords two favorable presumptions First, IS 8 partial assur ance that the distillation of petroleum is a continuous process and next, tha the formerly abandoned territory was given up because the machinery for ex tracting petroleum from the earth ex ceeded in it's power of exhausting thu fluid the generative powers by which i is produced.-Petroleara Monthly.