Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1855 Excerpt:...for where such decomposition is going on, (as in the western part of Worcester County, in Massachusetts,) the rocks are coated over with the hydrate, and the surrounding soil deeply impregnated with it. Nor can there be any doubt but this iron would be often carried by water--although not directly soluble in it,--to the lowest places, and into ponds and rivers, so as to form deposits there. Rem. The hydrate of manganese is almost as widely diffused through the rocks as the hydrate of iron; but its quantity is so small that it exerts but a slight influence in the production of geological changes, and will therefore be passed without particular description. The same remarks will apply to sulphate of lime, carbonate of magnesia, chloride of calcium, fec., which occur in almost all natural waters, and sometimes form deposits of small extent. Petroleum, Asphaltum, SfC. Descr. The great amount of bituminous matter with which cer" tain springs are impregnated, renders them deserving of notice as existing causes of geological change, capable of explaining certain PETROLEUM, ASPHALTUM, &C. 231 appearances in the older rocks; many of which are highly bituminous. In the Burman Empire, a group of springs or wells at on locality, yielded annually 400,000 hogsheads of petroleum. It is found also in Persia, Palestine, Italy, and the United States. In this country it has the name of Seneca Oil, from having been early observed on the surface of springs at Seneca in N. York. It is thrown up in considerable abundance, also, at the salt borings on the Kenhawa river in Ohio; where a few years ago a large quantity of it, floating on the surface of a small stream, took fire, and the river for a half a mile in extent appeared a sheet of flame. Am. Journal of Science, vol....