Saturday the delicious agony on a foundation as slight as the | of this history let us call him Gaëtan instead of gossamer trouble which shades the brow of the lovely Arthur, which is hackneyed. countess when dear Lord Ernest Adolphus Fitz- In Paris Gaëtan used to dine at one of the cafés Howard has missed bringing her down to dinner, or, on the Boulevards, which was undeniably charming as we ought to say, led her to the scene of festivity. in winter, but in the two months of summer exhaled They can be cynical at times, but with that air of a kitchen-odor not at all refreshing to the sense of killing Don Juanism which reminds us of, "O Mr. smell, or to the palate. There he used to go and Snob! how can you be so sarcastic?" In the sen- look out upon the lines of omnibuses and fiacres, the timental vein they have almost come round to Miss sun setting in a veil of gray dust-clouds, and the Seward again. We have recently seen both pic-eaters sitting at the round tables and executing in tures and letterpress in a popular monthly, fragrant chorus the everlasting refrain,of the "Forget-me-not" and "Bijou" of our grandnothers. As for stories of the genuine story kind, they are as hard to find as real Madeira. The edi- better. He paced the elegantly rustic path that ors, we suppose, are compelled to accept the rub-runs along the river, even to the farthest lawns of bish which is shot out on us through dearth of better; the Hotel de Quatre Tours; or, by way of variety, the most hopeless thing about these inventions would seem to be, that they show nowhere that "genius n the making," as it were, which years ago resulted n "Pendennis" and "David Copperfield." A LESSON IN GERMAN. ' TRAVELLERS of taste, who while en route let nothing in the domain of the beautiful escape their observation, and cast upon everything graceful or in any way charming a long look that to-morrow turns into a sweet memory, will not fail to remember a young, lovely, and dashing waltzer, who, in the season of 1859, at Ems, always opened the ball, and never finding the waltz long enough, compelled the musicians to give a four-page supplement to the scores of Strauss or Musard. The shrewdest judges of age, at eight o'clock in the morning, called her four-and-twenty; at noon, twenty; and in the evening, seventeen. A middle-aged gentleman accompanied her everywhere. Close observers said, some, he was her uncle, some her father, others, her husband. Everybody was wrong, as usual. "Ah! how hot it is!" At Ems the fashion of after-dinner life suited him chartered a gondola for a florin, appointed himself captain for the little voyage, and awoke with his oars the sleeping Lahn, that would like so well to stop at Ems and not go on to lose itself in the Rhine, that gulps it down like a glass of water. One evening the young Frenchman happened to cross the river at the same time with the ferry-boat, and was struck by the beauty of a lady passenger, who gazed lovingly on the green summit of the mountain, lighted by the smile of the setting sun. It was the Waking Beauty of the Woods, on the way to her favorite grass-plot. The sound of dipping oars roused the young lady; she turned her eyes toward the gondola, and two sets of glances met and made two hearts beat. Between two beings destined for each other there are often certain mysterious effluxions, sudden revelations of the future, that pass into the atmosphere when they first meet. These supernatural influences that descend from the eye to the heart have a still livelier force in the midst of delightful rural scenery in the soft light of a summer evening. In the lovely valley of the Lahn there is an echo with a peculiar voice; they used to say that in its quality of German echo it adored music, because it returned with an added, inexpressible charm the far melody of the orchestra at the Kursaal. At the close of the day the mysterious pair used to cross the Lahn on the boat with which the terrestrial Charon waited for passengers at the end of the beautiful promenade. Once on the other bank of the Elysian copse, the young lady would sit under the trees and gloat over the lovely landscape that the sun tinted with his sweetest hues, while her companion, up since five A. M., would pay some-up the river like an arrow. thing on account to that most inexorable, but gentlest of creditors, which we call sleep. It is always pleasant to give a name to pretty women whose proper appellations you don't know, -it is a watering-place usage; and this young unknown had been, by common consent, distinguished as the Waking Beauty of the Wood, and her companion as the Ugly Sleeper of the Wood. One of Perrault's tales was needed for this mystery. But the history came. This sweet echo prolongs the dance-call even to the Rhine, in thirty seconds, as if to humiliate the railroad, flinging it from peak to peak. Gaëtan heard it, and making bird's-wings of his oars sped Why has not Germany raised a statue to the inventor of the waltz? If he had been born at Athens in Pericles's time, his admiring fellow-citizens would have made him a demi-god and given him Love for a nephew. What an immense service that inventor has rendered to those who came after him! How many marriages he has brought about with his measures à trois temps! A swain has n't the acquaintance of the lady he loves, and if the waltz were not, he might seek for ten years, perhaps, an opportunity of speaking to her; by the aid of the waltz he can address her and offer his hand, if he chooses, the very first evening. One of the rich idlers who go from France to Ems to see people drink the waters, and to forget Paris for a month, came to the blooming meadows that the Lahn washes; and finding that the Seine, So Gaëtan, that very evening, engaged the unin spite of its bridges, did not furnish so much fresh-known for the first waltz: she showed her gas-light ness and health as the pretty German naiad, took a age,-seventeen. As to her toilet, she wore her hair two months' ticket to this hygienic theatre, that has in flat bandeaux; a rose above her ear, a juvenile green-clad mountains for side-scenes, the sun for a corsage, a girdle of floating azure, and no jewelry. ceiling, flowers for audience, quiet instead of bustle, pure air instead of the smell of gas, and health for the term of subscription. As the young man had a name like other people, we will not give him another; but for the purposes To begin conversation in circumstances like these is more difficult than to solve a problem in trigonometry. Gaëtan cudgelled his brains, but could think of nothing beyond some Parisian platitudes about the weather, the heat, the music, the Peace Congress, the voyage up the Rhine. But he | learn the few phrases which make up the vocabulary must say something, so he ventured to remark, of love. In a case like this the dictionary is only a "We are having a delightful summer this year."huge book crammed with useless and stupid phrases: This was stupid enough, but it required an an- when one is in love he can spend a lifetime in swer, and after that they might go on, step by step, saying only four. King Solomon, who knew whereto higher topics. of he spoke, has expressed this sage opinion: he has written, that outside of the language of love there are only formulas of vanity. One has a pretty strong case if Solomon is on his side, - he who had three hundred love affairs in his life, according to the gravest historians. The young valseuse made no reply: a shade of sadness overcast her face. She thinks me vulgar, reflected Gaëtan; let me try something better. "It is strange," said he, "that the waltz was invented by a grave German, and the slow minuet by a frivolous Frenchman." Silence would have been rudeness; and the young lady answered, in German, "I do not understand French, and I do not speak it." This was Hebrew to Gaetan. Almost all German ladies speak French, he said to himself: it must be fatality that she does n't. The orchestra flung its last notes along the porphyry colonnade, and Gaetan, leading his partner to a seat, left her, with a silent obeisance. M. Kirchberger, librarian at Ems, came to Gaëtan's assistance, a man of spirit and intelligence, and who spoke French like a native who knows how to speak it. He gave the eager student a little volume of familiar dialogues in French and German, with rules for pronouncing. During the two days consecrated to the work of learning the ten German phrases that alone were, necessary to his happiness he used to take a little rest from study, and walk under the farther trees of the avenue, watching the beloved one's windows. This is a work that young men always have done and always will do, even to the uttermost windows of Jehosaphat. They hum softly, "O Matilda, idol of my soul!” or “ Come, gentle lady!" or "When one awaits his love," or "With kindness view my pain": one has a fine choice, for there is great vari The columns of the Kursaal at Ems favor the total seclusion of lovers who wish to see without being seen. Gaëtan hid behind one to observe the appearance and attitude of his late partner, and judge if he might venture upon favorable conjectures; for with his share of that silliness common to so many of us, he believed he had made an impres-ety in the operas. sion. If the window remains deaf to all the gamuts of If, after leaving her partner, a young lady talks Meyerbeer, Rossini, and Boieldieu, the tenor has his with her neighbors, laughs without provocation, as- labor for his pains: he can dismiss himself or seek sumes the most graceful poses, refines naturally on another engagement to try a better fortune. But the innocent art of coquetry; if, in fine, no symp-if the window curtain is rustled with intelligent cautom of distraction is visible in her face, it is because tion, if that wooden ear is opened; if a ringlet of she is thinking of the dance, and that he who blonde or brown floats out on the wind; if a charmdanced with her is already forgotten. But the fairing profile follows and outlines itself in the shadow unknown did not exhibit herself in this discouraging aspect to the keen eyes of the concealed ob server. The grave personage who always accompanied her made some remark, but the lady did not seem inclined to conversation; she answered by a motion of the head, or by monosyllables, as if she said: "We will talk of this to-morrow; don't disturb my meditations now." And shutting her fan she leaned her smooth chin upon it, and seemed to muse: the loveliest women and the most elegant toilets swept by her, but she did not vouchsafe them a glance. At ten o'clock the father, husband, uncle, whatever he was, looked at his watch and rose hurriedly, like a man who feared to miss the exact minute for taking his glasses of water to-morrow. The lady made a slight movement of remonstrance, and cast a sweeping glance around the salon as she took the offered arm. Gaëtan interpreted all this to his own advantage, and gliding from column to column, like a debtor striving to avoid his creditor, he followed at a distance, resolved to discover the earthly residence of the wood-fairy. She takes the road to the Hotel de Telegraphe; but Gaëtan never loses sight, in the gloom of the overhanging trees, of that white and Howing dress that lights up the darkness. Having found out where she lives, Gaëtan formed a dozen plans that proved impracticable, though he had thought them admirable; so he decided to wait for a better one, such as fortune sometimes takes the trouble of inventing for us when she wishes to be kind. First, he must learn German in forty-eight hours, for day after to-morrow's ball; or at least he must or the sun, ah! then the lover sees shine out from that enviable window the rainbow of hope; the tenor is engaged, even if he sings falsely, for the falseness of his notes proves the sincerity of his pas sion. The play of the window-blind exhibited every shade of gradation; it was like an ascending scale in music; the fastening creaked timidly; the double shutter opened gently; a ringlet floated out; the divine profile followed, and the adored face beamed out to the sun and extinguished it. Gaëtan pressed his hand on his heart to keep it from bursting. At his second visit the window played the same game. Then Gaëtan strove to make rapid progress in the German of love. “O Love! what a teacher of languages thou art!" he ejaculated as he went to Nassau to dine and to study his ten phrases in the enchanted valley where the mountains dress themselves in green velvet for the encouragement of lovers; and crossing the pretty bridge of Nassau, he dropped into the river the last of his phrases. — words compendious as a folio, I love you, - Ich liebe Sie, and in his intoxication he prayed the Lahn, swift messenger, to bear this poem to the woody bank where his love watched in the twilight. II. THE ball-hour came and Gaëtan shook with fear, like the conscript when he hears the first roar of cannon in battle. Some minutes, first, he walked among the green plane-trees on the terrace, amusing himself with repeating his ten phrases: but lo! when the critical moment struck, he had forgotten them all. It was a solemn crisis. The gay throng Saturday swarmed into the Kursaal; the orchestra struck up; | news of his books. "I will bet a thousand francs,” the young officers of Coblentz set about making their engagements: he must summon courage and secure her at all hazards for the first dance. The rest belonged to Fate. No opportunity remained for a glance at the little book; and besides he would have been laughed at if found taking a lesson in German, with his foot raised to go and talk to a German lady. he said, "that she will come to the window with the French grammar in her hand?" Busy with plans for their marriage, and with his eyes fixed on the window, he heard a piercing cry, and saw a boy, who was driving a donkey along the street, knocked down by a book hurled from Laërta's window. Gaëtan stood stupefied. Then, impelled by a foolish curiosity, he went forward and mingled with the crowd that gaped about the thunder-stricken little donkey-driver. With his head in a fever he hurried to the Kursaal. In a few minutes the unknown came and took her accustomed seat, dressed as on the previous "Think of it!" said a French voice; 66 some peoevening. Women put a meaning into the most tri-ple indulge in very cruel amusements. Here is a fling details. Gaëtan understood her choice of place Nero in furnished lodgings who has just knocked and toilet, and his smile of intelligent approval was down this poor child with a dictionary!" not lost, two beautiful eyes with velvet irises caught it as it flew. He approached her, bowed respectfully, and murmured some syllables which in all lands signify: I engage you for the first waltz or the first quadrille; his offer was accepted with an eagerness very slightly dissembled. A collection was taken up for the luckless urchin, and Gaëtan gave him ten thalers. At the same moment a purse was thrown from Laërta's window that rang on the pavement with the sound of gold. The boy's fortune was made; he wept no more. Gaëtan resumed the attitude of stupefaction. If he could have opened his tenor's lips, he would have sung the everlasting chorus of Scribe's operas: "What, then, is this mystery! this mystery infernal, that freezes me with terror?" A student from Munich picked up the dictionary, and made off at great speed, rejoicing in a bargain that Fortune had sold The orchestra let loose its hurricane of thundering sound, and the charming pair whirled over the marble with that graceful lightness that fascinates the gazer and keeps his eyes fixed till the very last strain. With the fair German's hand in his, Gaëtan was more than ever oblivious of the German lan-him for nothing. guage; but by a violent effort of will he succeeded in recalling the last of Love's ten commandments, I love thee; and to supply the lack of the nine others he repeated this nine times, to the accompaniment of the maddening orchestra, which seemed to adapt its music to such a passionate declaration. ·Behold a miracle of love!” said the young girl, "he has learned German in forty-eight hours!" And in the last measure of the waltz she deigned to answer him with a smile and a glance which signified everything but disapprobation. By the time the ball was ended the continual interchange of eloquent glances convinced Gaëtan that he was on the road to a hasty marriage. The Joining the crowd, the faithful porter made every effort to attract Gaëtan's attention; but the young man was gazing at the mountain-peak that rose above the line of houses, and seeking in the clouds a solution of his mystery. Then the porter ventured to approach and give him a sounding blow on the elbow, which produced the desired effect. gaze of the unhappy lover descended from the clouds, and he became conscious of the intelligent pantomime of the porter, who seemed to say, "I have something very important to say to you." So they went aside a little, and Gaëtan listened to the following revelation. This porter, you see, according to the usage of his profession, was accustomed The next day he bought a grammar and a diction- to talk with all the lady's maids in order to learn ary, French and German, and had them covered the great and little secrets of their families, and he with satin-paper and ornamented with green ribbons. had fathomed the mystery of Dr. Blank, the paterOn the watch at seven o'clock, he saw the fair un-nal uncle of the beautiful widow. It is a curious known and her companion go out, and at once made page of history: his way to their house. Nearly all the porters along the route speak French, he said to himself, and my plan will infallibly succeed. In fact, it did succeed, with the aid of five Frederics, which a porter never refuses. Gaëtan got all the information he wanted. The unknown gentleman was Dr. Blank, and the lady was widow Laërta, aged thirty years, as a stupid, but truth-telling passport testified. The figure "thirty" surprised Gaëtan somewhat, but abated not a jot of his passion. It is the age of your true woman, he thought; from Dido and Cleopatra down, widows have always inspired the most ardent senti ments. And he said to the porter: "Give these books to Mad. Laërta's maid, and let her place them on a table in her mistress's chamber." The porter put his hand on his heart and ten Frederics in his pocket, in token of his unfaltering fidelity, and went up stairs to accomplish his mis sion. At the breakfast-hour, which comes after exercise and drinking of the waters, Gaëtan crouched in a clump of trees to study from a distance the language of the window, and to get, if possible, some In the days of the Emigration, the young Chevalier Marcel de came to Coblentz with the Baron, his father, to avoid the kind attentions of the Committee of Public Safety. Faithful to the teachings of comic opera, Marcel, desiring to be a favorite with the ladies wherever he happened to be, and to relieve the tedium of exile, resolved to make love to a young German girl, who spoke French admirably. The young lady conceived a violent passion for the handsome, powdered, bespangled and beribboned butterfly, who called her his shepherdess, and made love to her in ardent quatrains. One fine day a very sad day, however, for the young shepherdess of the banks of the Moselle — the Chevalier, alarmed by the word "marriage," which she pronounced too often, crossed the Rhine, and went to make new conquests, up the Lahn, from Nassau to Giessen. The unhappy, deserted Ariana had an attack of high fever, and in her delirium sung without ceasing: "O beautiful Iris, be faithful to me; Her father, learning her secret from these ravings, took his sword and went in search of the exiled Baron. When he found him, he said: "Sir, in 1757 I was twenty years old, and I fought under the great Frederick at Rossbach, against the Prince de Soubise. I can measure swords with you even now, for vengeance will strengthen my arm." "By my soul!" replied the Baron, "your arrival is most timely. I am bored to death, and this affair will help me get rid of an hour or two, as Racine says in Les Plaideurs. I knew M. de Soubise well; he was a charming man; he had the honor of being beaten by the great Frederick, - a privilege second to none other. Let me throw off my cloak, and I am with you." The two champions walked to the banks of the Moselle, and as they were about to begin, the Baron said, with a winning air, 66 - By the way, Monsieur, what are we to fight about?' "How! Baron, you don't know?" said Ariana's father. 66 Certainly not, M. de Rossbach." The proper explanation was at once made, and as their swords crossed, the Baron ejaculated, "I always knew that my devil of a son would be Richelieu II."; and, after three passes, he fell, mortally wounded, saying, "Three masses for my soul at St. Castor, and a hundred pistoles to the curé." After this event, when the young ladies of the family of the hero of Rossbach reached the age of fifteen, they were required to swear on the Holy Bible that they would never learn to speak French, and would never touch a French book. the oath of Hannibal among the females of the family, and Laërta, like her ancestresses, had taken it on a Guttenberg Bible. This was Therefore, when Dr. Blank found a French dictionary in his house, he was seized with such a rage that he hurled it through the window, -the huge book enriching a poor boy in its fall. -- where it was formerly deemed sacred by the fireworshippers of Western Asia; whilst for ages it has been largely obtained in the Birman Empire. The horrors of the Dead Sea included Asphalt in their list, and France and Italy, Germany and England, Russia and the Island of Trinidad, all swell the roll of localities in which free bitumen, under one form or other, has been found. But it remained for America-where, as has often been observed, Nature does everything upon the largest scale, and Man aims at accomplishing all things possible in the most extreme style-to exceed in its production of the raw material, and for Americans to excel in their application, and to rush in the maddest spirit of speculation into a commercial mania almost unparalleled in modern times. The most extraordinary feature of the story is, that Nature has hitherto so far replied to the extravagant demands of the gamblers as to turn up for their benefit a series of prizes such as would never have been dreamt of by the most sanguine enthusiast. On the borders of the Pacific, the remote Californian has a rich supply of bitumen, welling up in his region; and, to look across a hemisphere, we hear from Australia of "Petroleum" Coal Seams, which, though probably not coming within the strict limits of our subject, yet show that our Antipodean relatives are fully alive to this world-wide subject, and are not unlikely to discover the free mineral. The value of these natural materials brought home to us have caused their more full recognition upon our own soil; and in addition to the long-known, and not long since much discussed, manufacture of artificial oils from bituminous shales and coals, we now learn, from recently published accounts, of "Petroleum in North Wales." To convey anything like an adequate idea of the extent of the natural supply of the crude material, and of the commercial importance of their derivatives, would carry us beyond the scope of the present article, which has for its object to consider the production of free bituminous subtherefore refer our readers to "Derrick and Drill," and to Professor Draper's most interesting paper in the Quarterly Journal of Science for statistics, and the perusal, we can assure them, will well re One clause had been omitted in this oath. It was this: "I swear I will never marry a French-stances in its purely geological aspect. We must man. And on account of this omission, Laërta, near the close of the season, gave her hand to Gaëtan, who knew well enough all the German phrases that are necessary to the happiness of a married pair. Af-pay the research. terwards he made great progress, and became so familiar with all the refinements of the language of Goethe, that Laërta had no need to speak that of Lamartine, and kept her oath. In spite of the touches of exaggeration that are sure, especially amongst Americans, to accompany the history of such a really wonderful commercial discovery, and of its unanticipated results, the general reader will find that the actual facts of the case are full of information and interest, and in "Derrick and Drill" these are conveyed to him in an amusing and readable form. PETROLEUM AND OIL-FIELDS. MINERAL pitch and pitchy fluids issuing from the But with all the abundance of bitumen and biearth have been known from the earliest times of tuminous fluids, and the ubiquity of their occurhistory. From the date of the bituminous bricks rence, we may search volumes in vain for anything of Babel to our own oily era, bitumen and its deriv-like satisfactory information as to its geological hisatives, or its allies, have been used, here and there, tory. The scientific geologist who would warn his and now and then, for one purpose or another: a practical brother from fruitless efforts in search of building material in the ancient East, an embalming coal, or wishes to point out to the explorer where agent amongst the Egyptians, a medicine amongst he may hope to find a supply of subterranean fuel, the civilized and the uncivilized; its more general - be it lignite, ordinary coal, or anthracite,- has utility has shone forth at all epochs as an illuminator. something more to depend upon for his statements In almost every quarter of the globe this mineral than the mere empirical knowledge that these have has been found to occur; it still flashes over the or have not been found in such or such a locality. surface of the ground from Stratification aids him; Carboniferous Rocks indicate a great probability, the presence of Oolites a possibility, of Coal; whilst Tertiary beds may con "those fountains of blue flame That burn into the Caspian,". tain a more or less valuable substitute. But Bitu- | seams seen near the surface, but in some far more men and Naphtha and Petroleum set all calcula- deeply seated deposits, and that the writer may tions hitherto made at defiance. They may be have been misled by a similarity of appearance and bored into in a Palæozoic region, far below any a contiguity in position to assume identity of origin. coal-bearing rocks, or they well up through Tertiary We advance the doubt cautiously, and in the hope strata; Shales may be impregnated with them in of obtaining more certain knowledge on the point. the Silurian, the Devonian, or the Oolite Forma- Mr. Wall's evidence, when made clear, must be retions; the mineral oil may exude slowly and cold garded as of more than ordinary importance, as it from the cells of a most ancient coral, or boil up, seems to be the best stone in a structure that otherand cooling form a recent rock. So multitudinous wise appears to stand upon a ricketty basis. The are the modes of its occurrence, so baffling, at first theory, as applied to the sources of Petroleum in sight, are its associations with rocks of all ages and North America, appears to have resulted from diffiall kinds, so concealed are its hidden sources, if ap-culties in making all the circumstances of the case parently of recent origin, or so utterly lost, if of an- agree with another and far more simple hypothesis. cient date, that it is scarcely a wonder that geolo-A" special mineralization," or "fermentation gists have allowed it to remain a known but an theory, to include both animal and vegetable subunexplained existence; that, at the best, but hazy stances, according to need, in its operations, was ideas of the truth have been thrown out, amongst a therefore built up to replace a "distillation" theory, host of most unnatural theories. For sundry ex- which, though well based, seemed at first sight inamples of the latter we must refer the reader to capable of explaining enough. It has long ago Mr. White's little work; though we regret to add, been suggested that free bituminous products, more that the theory which that author suggests to replace especially those which rise to the surface as oils, are them is by no means more scientific or even com- the results of a natural distillation of bitumen-conprehensible. Chemical Agency is a very safe ex- taining substances, such as lignites and coals, by the pression; but the assumed existence of "hippuric action of the heat of the interior of the earth. acid," of "almonds, or other Benzoic acidulous food," and of the constituents of mammilliary (sic), and other remains of sedimentary organism in Palaozoic Strata, would be simply laughable, if it did not appear to be scientific (!) quackery. The only object of the whole farrago of nonsense appears to be to make people believe that oil-wells in general, and Canadian ones in particular, are inexhaustible, -a view that is contrary to the opinion of those who have disinterestedly studied the statistics of the American oil-fields. * Now, considering that bitumous products can be obtained artificially from such substances by heat, and that coal-beds, after their formation, must, in very many instances, have been buried beneath enormous accumulations of later date, and consequently have been exposed to a great increase of temperature, there is a primâ facie case in favor of this view. In anthracites we have further witnesses in support of it, for these are coals which, having been exposed to the supposed conditions, have parted with their contained hydro-carbons. Such being Two theories have met with more favor than our case, let us cross-examine the witnesses against others, and of these two, it appears to us that the it. It has been said that the products of a natural least tenable has obtained the most and best sup- and of an artificial distillation of coal should be porters. A theory which, to account for the pres-identical, which they are not; but this objection is ence of Petroleum in Silurian or Devonian strata of no value, since man and nature work under such of undoubtedly marine origin, assumes that the dissimilar conditions, that the utmost we can expect remains, not merely of sea-weeds, but even of mol- is a similarity, far from an identity, of results. Geoluscous animals, may be converted into bitumen logical proof is given that petroleum occurs in localsimilar to that derived from the mineralization of ities far distant from any yielding coal, - in rocks the higher plants, "must give us pause," though it far older than any known to contain it, and that be supported by the names of Dana and Logan. the strata in which it has been found have, to all The best evidence adduced in favor of the view appearance, never been heated. The last is evithat fluid bitumen is the result of a "special miner- dence actually in favor of the distillation theory; alization," of even vegetable remains, that of Mr. for the hydro-carbons having been driven off from Wall, in his remarks on the Geology of the Island beds at a high temperature, must have been conof Trinidad, appears to us to be defective; for densed in strata which remained cool; and if such though that writer implies that the beds of vegeta- strata were subsequently heated, they would have ble matter undergoing conversion by chemical re- to give off again the bituminous products which they actions, at the ordinary temperature, and under had temporarily retained. But, say the objectors, the normal conditions of climate, become a solid the petroleum reservoirs are frequently in rocks bitumen identical with the fluid of the "pitch-lake," older, and therefore inferior, in position to the yet we fail, on referring to the original paper, to lowest known Coal-measures, and if the latter had see the connection between the one and the other. been heated, the former must have been more so. They may be different portions of one and the same This objection assumes that the condensed subphenomenon, but are there no differences between stances are found now on the very spot where they the chemical reactions which at first, by a special were originally distilled. But, suppose distillation mineralization, convert vegetable matter into solid to have taken place in the heated and upthrown bitumen, in sitû, and which are also assumed to con- Coal-measures now forming the Appalachian chain, vert this same bitumen into a fluid again at the the distilled products would have found their way normal temperature, to cool once more to the solid down the subterranean slopes of the colder rocks, form? flanking the actual site of disturbance, until penetrating cracks and fissures, they found a permanent resting-place upon an impervious series of unheated rocks, far distant from, and quite possibly below, in geological position, the Carboniferous strata from which they had their origin. We may even imagine It appears to us that, as far as any proof is contained on Mr. Wall's paper, the source of the fluid pitch may not lie at all in the stratified vegetable * Oil-Fields of Canada, etc. |