Show Petroleum The theory that the remains of animals ani-mals form the raw materials from which petroleum is formed by nature is still held by some prominent scientists And as to the manner in which the organic substances of those animals became decomposed de-composed Dr Engler sets forth as a primary starting point the fact that such substances consists essentially of nitrog enated material and fat the former easily eas-ily decomposed the latter very staple as has been well known for a long time and demonstrated by exact investigations investiga-tions examples in proof being the war I of cadavers in old graves the fat in the bones of mammals thousands of years old and the fat on the bottom of the ocean recently found Whether and how the fat was decomposed de-composed in this long period by the water wa-ter splitting up glycerol and forming the free acidfor instance the fat in the bones of mammals caupot be answered an-swered but both fat and the fatty acids form petroleum when distilled under pressure One of the many possibilities pos-sibilities cited by Dr Engler by which the mechanical process of the transmutation transmu-tation of fat into petroleum may have taken place is that remains of the character char-acter in question wrapped in mud and transported by the currents in the ocean easily accumulate and later on under the pressure of sedimentary layers or strataperhaps under the influence of heat tooare transformed into petroleum petro-leum New York Sun |