OIL SPRINGS.”

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1097, 8 July 1882, Page 2

OIL SPRINGS.”

Mu Denton, the Geological lecturer, in his second lecture given at Christchurch on the different formations of the earth, concluded as follows : —Next came the Devonian period when fishes were the monarchs of tho planet —fishes of monstrous sixe, with plates of mail supplied by nature, to enable them to go forth to destroy—for even ot that early period reproduction and murder went hand and hand together. This Devonian time was also a coralline period, and they owed kerosene to the coral insect., though perhaps they were not aware of it. There were largo number of theories on the subject. Mo had been asked by a lady whether he did not think that this kerosene was a new creation because coal was running short, and 1.0 to had say no. One man had accounted for the discovery of keros?ue by saying t’.at they were pumping up oil from the carcases of the antediluvian whales stranded in the ages long past. (Laughter.) The oil was not a coal oil; of this ho was perfectly certain, because if it were so it would be found near coal mines, but lie had been in mines al! over the world and had never found it. Besides this, the oil was found below the coal—two miles bolow tho coal deposit. It was a coral oil, and secreted by tho coralline insects in honeycombed stone, lie found it in tho cells per- ! feotly white, changing its color when tho atmosphere began to act on it. This oil was fount! in Poverty Bay, and ho believed that ere long the Bay would have to change its name to Plenty Bay. because this oil was most valuable. In some localities there were lakes of this oil. which was the only way in which the wonderful yields in America could bo accounted for. There Lad been waiting for them through countless ages servants who only wanted tho bidding of intelligent man to com? forth and serve him. Tin’s, and such as this, had been stored up for them, as a mother provides for her unborn child, through millions of years. (Cheers.) Mr Denton concluded a most pleasing lecture by tho display of some capital photographs by means <,f the oxyhydrogen light*.