SCIENCE:

PUBLISHED BY N. D. C. HODGES, 874 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

slates. Second, that a free drainage to these waters was essential; when some barrier was interposed,-as, for instance, the green schists of No. 2 of the series, which in some cases cuts through the taconite, and so prevented the flow of the water saturated with silica,-r -no enrichment of the lean strata took place.

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THE MESABI IRON RANGE.

BY E. P. JENNINGS, IRONWOOD, MICH. THE discovery and development of this new source of iron ore within the last two years presents many points of interest. The deposits differ from all others in the Lake Superior district in being horizontal, and are only covered by the glacial drift.

The range is situated about 50 miles north of Lake Superior and extends from the Canadian line west to, and probably beyond, the Mississippi River, a distance of about 140 miles. The cre bearing belt is narrow, averaging about one mile in width.

The beds lie on the south flank of the Giant's Range--a chain of granite bills which form the watershed between Lake Superior and Hudson's Bay.

The rock scries, according to Professor N. H. Winchell, is as follows:

First. The Archæan granite of the Giant's Range. Second. Green Schists of the Keewatin-Archæan, dipping at high angles to the south.

Fourth. Iron ore and taconite horizon Taconic.
Fifth. Slates and cherts --Taconic.
Sixth. back slates - Taconic.

Seventh. Tae gabbro overflow which covers the eastern third of the range, and also appears to the south of the central part of the range.

Small bodies of banded titanifcrous ore occur in the gabbro, but th se deposits have no value and belong to a different horizon from the vast deposits of the so-called taconite horizon.

The tacenite is a grayish, jaspery quartzite, enclosing narrow bands and masses of ore, and is somewhat similar in character to the banded jaspery ores of the Michigan Ranges. Where the condidons have been favorable the ore bodies have been formed by the solution and removal of the silicious rock through the agency of carbonated waters. The iron oxides, being insolable in this reagent, have been left in verio's states of aggregation from hard specular and massive hematites to soft hydrated oxides.

The conditions favorable to the solution and removal of the silicious matter from the taconite or banded ore appear to be, first, that the taconite must not have been covered by other rock that would have preserved it from the action of the carbonated waters. So far no ore has been found in the taconite when covered with the black

The quartzite under the taconite has also been acted upon by the carbonated water, for the layers immediately under the ore are disintegrated and have the appearance of a soft white or yellowish sand. Slight streaks of the same sand are also found in the ore, showing that in places the action of the water has not been complete.

About all the known ores of iron are found in these deposits, with the exception of carbonate, such as hard specular, massive hematite, soft blue black hematite, limonite, göthite and some magnetite. The latter can be separated by a magnet from the soft blue hematite. There is little or no pyrite in the ore, and in general the sulphur compounds are absent. The best ore is the socalled "blue ore, a fine granular blue black hematite, which does not soil the hands as most of the soft ores do. This ore carries from 62 to 68 per cent iron, and phosphorus from .007 to .050 per cent, with small amounts of silica, lime, magnesia, and alumina, and is an ideal blast furnace ore.

Some of the ore basins are very large and show that the concentrating process has been on a very extensive scale. The basin at the Biwabec is about 3,000 feet in length by about 1,000 feet in width, with a depth along the axis of the deposit of 100 feet or more, the deposit gradually thinning out on the northern edge near the granite. This deposit is known to contain 20,000,000 tons of blue ore and possibly as much more of the yellow and brown ores that will run 60 per cent in iron. This is but one of many known basins.

The ore in these beds is nearly horizontal and varies from a few feet to over one hundred feet in thickness and is covered by the glacial drift from a few inches to one hundred feet in depth.

The operation of mining consists of first removing the “over-burden," which is done by steam shovels. Then railroad tracks are laid on this uncovered surface of the ore. The ore is loosened by light blasts of black powder and shoveled and hoisted on cars by steam shovels. Two thousand eight hundred tons of ore have been mined and loaded with a single shovel in a day of twenty hours.

The great hoisting and pumping engines of the deep mines of other districts are here replaced by the tools of a modern railroad contractor-the locomotive and steam shovel. As there is no pumping, no hoisting, no timbering, and as most of the work is done by machinery, no skilled miners are required and few men of any kind. The cost of mining is therefore very low.

Considering both the quality and quantity of ore and low cost of production, this new range is certainly one of the most wonderful discoveries of the century.

Mr. Goldwin Smith in the preface to his latest book, “Oxford and her Colleges: A View from the Radcliffe,' says: "The writer has seldom enjoyed himself more than in showing an American friend over Oxford. He has felt something of the same enjoyment in preparing, with the hope of interesting some American visitors, this outline of the history of the University and her colleges. He would gladly believe that Oxford and Cambridge having now, by emancipation and reform, been reunited to the nation, may also be reunited to the race; and that to them, not less than to the universities of Germany, the eyes of Americans desirous of studying at an European as well as at an American university may henceforth be turned."

PETROLEUM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA.

BY S. F. PECKHAM, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN.

THE history of the development of petroleum in Southern California is very interesting. It first attracted attention just at the close of the war, when the energies of the country were again directed to the development of its material resources. The production of oil upon Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, had assumed such proportions as to stimulate effort in all directions for the opening up of every locality, not only in the United States, but in foreign countries where springs of petroleum or deposits of other forms of bitumen encouraged the possibility of repeating the experiences that had attended the drilling of wells along the tributaries of the Upper Alleghany.

Among the persons who had promoted the enterprises that had borne such fruit on Oil Creek none had been more prominent than Professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr., and his contributions to the scientific press upon the oil springs of Pennsylvania soon became classical. It is not surprising, therefore, that when he announced that a duplicate of the oil region of western Pennsylvania region of western Pennsylvania existed in the region south of Point Conception and the coast ranges his utterances were accepted as oracular and that commercial enterprises of unlimited dimensions found the most cordial support from capital on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts.

The insufficient examination given the subject and the shameful imposition practised upon Professor Silliman by those in whom he had a right to place confidence led to both extravagant expenditure and expectation along the whole line of development, so that the collapse of the vast organizations that during 1865-6 attempted to make real the prophecies that had been indulged respecting the possibilities of Ojai, Simi, etc., was more complete and disastrous than it ought to have been, and the reaction robbed the industry of the merit that justly was its due. While in California in 1865-6 I became convinced that nearly all the wells that were located and drilled during that period were drilled in barren rock, hence their failure to produce oil was not surprising. The tunnels driven by Wheeler and Moss into the Sulphur Mountain and by others in the Newhall District, around the Pico Cañon, demonstrated the fact that petroleum as well as maltha existed in the mountains of this region; but the difficulties of drilling and the small returns realized in any instance, as compared with other wells, particularly in Pennsylvania, led to the most disastrous and complete discouragement for many years.

Added to this was another class of facts scarcely less discouraging. Repeated, and in many instances very costly, experiments fully established the fact that in California petroleum technologists had a new substance to deal with from which commercial articles identical with those obtained from Pennsylvania oils could not be made. The illuminating oils were small in quantity, but they were beautiful in appearance, and were only found to be different from Pennsylvania oils when they were burned; the differences having always from that time to this presented a difficulty in the way of commercial success that is fundamental. In the early days of refining, when it was taken for granted that petroleum was petroleum, wherever found, the petroleum obtained in Southern California, for the most part from tunnels, was attempted to be refined by simple distillation and treatment, as was at the time the custom in Pennsylvania. At this period (1865-6) the technology of Pennsylvania petroleum was extremely simple. Naphtha was a drug in the market and was forced into the burning oil or was burned under the stills, while, with stills being for the most part run to coke, the lubricating oils were dark in color, rank in odor and

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generally in ill-repute. When the attempt was made to treat California oils in the same manner, it was found that there was but little naphtha, not much more burning oil, a large proportion of an oil that was neither burning oil nor lubricating oil, and a small amount of oil dense enough and with body enough for lubrication. Wheeler came back from San Francisco, where a trial run had been made, and, in language more graphic than polite, declared that the stuff was "all d-d middlings.” Soon after Professor Silliman took a barrel of Ojai tar (maltha) to Boston and treated it in the experimental still used at the Downer Kerosene Oil Company's works. He produced a certain percentage of illuminating oil. about the same time I succeeded by distilling the petroleums from the Canada Laga and Pico springs and from the tunnels in Wheeler's Cañon and also a specimen of maltha from the same pool on the Ojai from which Professor Silliman's barrel came, in increasing the yield of illuminating oil to a very respectable percentage. But while the illuminating oil thus produced was colorless and brilliant, it was peculiar, and could never be sold, so far as I have been informed, on its own merits in competition with illuminating oils made from Atlantic coast petroleums. In this condition the matter rested for many years. A few barrels of oil were produced each year. Some of it was treated, but most of it, so far as I can learn, was sold crude for fuel.

About 1880 a new era dawned. Several gentlemen who had had large experience as oil producers in Pennsylvania, after a thorough study of the stratigraphy of the Sulphur Mountain and the ranges bordering the Santa Clara Valley, located a number of wells on the Ojai ranche and in the Sespé and other cañons that greatly exceeded in productiveness any wells formerly drilled in this region. The location of these wells was made on an entirely different principle from that which determined the location of wells in 1865. With few exceptions the outcrops of bitumen throughout this region are on hillsides into which the strata dip at a high angle. At the foot of these hills the maltha and asphaltum have often accumulated in extensive beds that with the accompanying rubbish sometimes amount to even thousands of tons.

The figure illustrates the situation. A careful study of the section shows conclusively that the well of 1865 might be drilled to any depth without reaching oil, while the location of 1880 presents only mechanical obstacles to the ultimate penetration of the oil-bearing strata. The problems of well-boring in this region present many difficulties. The formation is in the middle tertiary. The rocks are soft and friable and are tilted at very high angles. The wells in western Pennsylvania, after the surface water is cased off at about 300-400 feet, may be drilled to great depths as dry holes. In Southern California, on the contrary, the well must be cased to the bottom, and drilled wet, as it is impossible to case off the water. The well is first started about 12 inches in diameter and the casing driven until it can be forced no further; a second size that will just run inside the first is then inserted and driven like the first until the pressure of the yielding mass of earth and rock holds it too firmly to admit of its being driven further; when a third size is inserted, and so on until a size too small to admit of further drilling is reached. I think few wells 2000 feet deep have been drilled by this method in this region. It is obvious that the difficulties of locating and drilling wells here are very great and that in many instances a well may fail of yielding oil within a few feet of a valuable deposit.

It is but just to myself to say that I advised the superintendent of the California Petrolenm Company, operating upon the Ojai ranche in 1865-6, to locate wells at the east end of the ranche, in precisely the location since de

termined upon. The successful wells in the Torrey and Sespé cañons have since been located upon the same principle. See the figure.

It is also a fact worth noting that the tunnels driven into the Sulphur Mountain by Wheeler in 1865, the location of which I have elsewhere described, have yielded oil continuously from that time to this and are still yielding oil in moderate quantity.'

The oil having been obtained, a refinery was constructed at Santa Paula and a pail of the product manufactured into various articles for which a market could be secured. Unlike the natural oils obtained from springs, the oils from wells contained a considerable proportion of naphtha, even light enough to be suitable for use as gasoline. illuminating oils are produced. The heavier naphthas and oils of a density suitable for illuminating oil are separated and sold without treatment as gas oil. A considerable proportion is then run off as crude lubricating oil, and the

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for structures, superior both in durability and appearance to any ordinary form of shingle.

This pure asphaltum is also used as a basis for paints and for coating paper, its purity as bitumen and its freedom from coke and other injurious substances rendering it greatly superior to coke, pitch and many cheaper and undesirable forms of natural bitumen.

Printer's ink of very superior quality is also made one. of the products of this remarkable technology.

Besides the refinery at Santa Paula there is another establishment at Alameda Point, in San Francisco harbor, where oils from this region are given similar treatment.

This industry is in its infancy. The purposes to which these remarkable products can be applied are only partially known and very imperfectly appreciated. It is not only my intention to call attention to the fulfilment of predictions made in 1866, that the oil interests of Southern California would ultimately yield a profitable return upon

residue remaining in the still is run out and allowed to cool. This residue is a hard, brilliant, black solid. It is made for different purposes of different grades and degrees of hardness, the hardness depending upon the amount of the crude lubricating oil that is allowed to remain in the residuum. This material is a very pure (almost chemically pure) asphaltum and possesses some peculiar and very valuable properties. Straw board or wood pulp may be saturated with it and rendered nearly inert to acids and alkalies unless in concentrated solution. Straw board cut in suitable sizes may be saturated with it and made into a solid water-proof shingle that when painted forms an elegant and durable external covering

1 Reports of the Tenth Census of the United States, Vol. X., Petroleum, plate XI. Geological Survey of California, Geology, Vol. II., appendix p.

capital invested; but to also call attention to the great scientific interest attaching not only to the geology but technology of the unique and hitherto unfamiliar products of this remote region.

68,

INTERPRETATION OF MAYA GLYPHS BY THEIR PHONETIC ELEMENTS.-PART II.

BY HILBORNE T. CRESSON, A. M., M.D. PROCEEDING with the analyses begun in Part I of this article, there is on Plate II, fig. 14, a glyph which appears in the Codex Cortesianus, Plate 16, among a series of five glyphs just above an ideo-phonetic drawing of Hun Kimil. In fig. 171, Plate I (see Science, No. 567, vol. xxii.), attention has already been called to one of this series of glyphs and the suggestion made that the phonetic elements com-. posing it recall the name of Kukulkan. It is but a variant of fig. 160, Plate I; see analysis of the glyph given in Part I of this article. The glyph to the left of this, the analysis of which is given on Plate II, figs. 226, 227, 228 to 234, reads ah chun Kan, and by reference to the Codex Cortesianus, Plate 16, it will be seen that there is still another which is a variant of it, repeating ah-chun-can. Next to it, reading from right to left, is the glyph referred to above, fig. 14, which we analyze on Plate II, figs. 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, as Xakan-ik="the revolving wind." Reference will be made to this presently. The last of the series (See Plate 16, Cortesianus) is the glyph Plate II, figs. 240 to 245, the elements of which, as in the glyphs shown at figs. 1 to 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of the plate (see day signs of Landa; Troano 6), express "Hun-ki"; the m and il do not seem to be expressed in any of the glyphs of Hun-Kimil. Other examples of abbreviation are to be remarked, as in the day sign Muluc, generally expressed "u-uk," and in the day sign Lamat, generally expressed "Lamak," at times "am-ak" (see glyphs day sign Lamak in Chilan Balam of Kaua); at times "ach" or "ak" (see Troano 6, 11, 18, 30, 31, 32, 34). In looking over a series of analyses of the day signs, all of which interpreted by my list of phonetic elements have yielded the names suggested by Landa, the names of the day signs Muluc and Lamat are less clearly expressed by the elements composing them than those of the other day signs. The glyph fig. 10, Plate II, taken from the Chilan Balam of Kaua, gives a series of these elements which are similar to those we have derived from the codices; using the elements fig. 11 as hun, and fig. 12 as un, we obtain "hun" or "hu-un "hun. The syllable Ki is derived from the value assigned this element on my phonetic list (see Part I of this article, Science, No. 567, page 326), Plate I, figs. 1 and 2 ka v/s; thus: Ka, Ke, Ki.

Vowel fluctuation, I repeat, must not be overlooked in this method of interpretation now described by me; in fact it is my opinion that the Maya glyphs can never be interpreted without considering it as an important factor in the work. The method of the Touaregs of the Sahara in deciphering their manuscripts affords a clue, for it is said that when the natives undertake this difficult task they begin by spelling the consonants aloud . . . applying to them in succession the various vowels until a word is found that makes sense. In fact, it is absolutely necessary to proceed in a like manner in the Maya script, only, instead of chanting, the combinations can be worked out with pencil and paper. In an endeavor to interpret a series of glyphs the amount of labor that this requires can be duly appreciated. The rest of this article will simply be devoted to an explanation of these fluctuations, adding, where necessary, a few remarks upon the interpretations made.

Fig. 21 is a well known compound glyph, variants of which frequently appear in the hieratic script and the codices, especially in the Peresianus (Plates 2 to 10). The phonetic elements of one of its components, Fig. 22, it will be seen by reference to figs. 23, 24, 25, Plate II=bacab. It is a variant of the day sign Been and was evidently used by the scribe to express be, derived from its phonetic value

We

of ba v/s The next component is fig. 26, where we have the curved aspirate line, fig. 27=xa v/s, cha v/s, the serpent curve, fig. 28- Kan, chan, Ka v/s, and the parallel line=ik, derived from one of its values of ka v/s. have here a repetition in a new combination of the word xakau-ik = "The Revolving Wind," which has already been suggested by the glyph fig. 14, Plate II. The element fig. 30 is in fact closely allied to the x, ch, and sh sounds, the curved element, fig. 28, supplying the monosyllable Kan; this associated with the curved aspirate line, fig. 127, gives xan or xakan or shakan. The rest of the phonetic elements composing this glyph, fig. 31, repeats ik, fig. 32=cha, fig. 33=kan, fig. 35=ik. The enclosing outline of this glyph is not unlike the single curved Kan line, fig. 34, and it seems like a variant of fig. 228, also a Kan element and a component of the compound glyph, fig. 226, with the element fig. 227 placed above, this element, fig. 227, also appearing in fig. 21, fig. 32, just above fig. 33. The enclosing outlines of certain glyphs have at times an ideographic significance which it would be well for Maya paleographers to bear in mind. In this case fig. 33 has for its principal phonetic element a motive obtained from the serpent line, fig. 192, Plate I, Science No. 567; see also fig. 122, Plate I. The outline enclosing it is adapted to the curve of this element and is evidently a determinative sign, being purely ideographic. The glyph fig. 27, therefore, repeats Bacab xakan ik=" Bacab of the revolving wind," or, still better, "Of the shifting or changing wind." The sense intended is evidently Bacab=“ruler,” xakan ik="changing wind," or "wind that blows from the cardinal points." As this glyph is intimately associated with the bacab and chak cult in the Peresianus, the interpretation, it cannot be denied, is a probable one. If space permitted much interesting material, the results of analyses of glyphs in other codices, could be brought to support the truth of the interpretation given.

Fig. 36 is a glyph which appears in the Codex Peresianus, Plate 17. Its phonetic elements and their values are given in figs. 37, 38, 39, 40=xakan ik, a third repetition of this sentence. The glyph fig. 36, Plate II, is attached to the support of a representation of a straw house (xanil-na); see Plate 17, Peresianus. Underneath the house is the representation of Kukulkan in the act of turning over or revolving, symbolizing the sentence xakan-ik (or it may be chak, kan, ik = Chak, or "God of Serpents and Wind"). There are some interesting facts in connection with this figure, which is ideo-phonetic. Its ideographic sense, the action of revolving, has just been suggested. The color of the garment covering the body of the chak is green xan, on which are small squares of a darker green color arranged by twos (=Ca) and by fours (= Kan), suggesting xakan; the black squares attached to the roof arranged in pairs= Ka v/s (=2) or ik, together with the red color back of the figure (=chac) and the yellow colors of the straw roof (Kan=yellow). All of these accessories are ikonomatic and recall Chak-kan-ik or xakan-ik, supporting the interpretation that we have made of the glyph fig. 36, Plate II, which is attached to the support of the roof of the straw house. I am loth to consider all of these facts the result of mere accident; there is too much method in their arrangement. The colors used are without doubt ikonomatic. On Plates 15, 16, 17, 18, Peresianus, there are many repetitions of the words, chak-ikal "the hurricane " and "xakan-ik" = "the revolving" or "whirlwind." We find the sentences repeated in the Dresden Codex and in certain parts of the script of Palenque-notably on the bas-reliefs representing Kukul-kan as Chak of Water and Wind, that at one time stood at the right and left of the doorway of the temple of the Four Winds and Chaks at Palenque (so called Temple of the Cross); "the cross" being simply, as Brinton first suggested, a wind symbol.

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