Oil-Where Does Oil Come From?

A Theory as to the Origin of Petroleum.

Professor Mendelejef has recently (article written 140 years ago) advanced the theory that petroleum is of purely mineral origin and that the formation of it is going on every day.

He has, moreover, succeeded in producing artificial petroleum by a reaction that he describes, and he states that it is impossible to detect any difference between the natural product and the manufactured article.

His theory is as follows:

Infiltration of water, reaching a certain depth, come into contact with incandescent masses of carburets of metals, chiefly of iron, and are at once decomposed into oxygen and hydrogen.

The oxygen unites with the iron, while the hydrogen seizes on the carbon and rises to an upper level, where the vapors are condensed in part into mineral oil, and the rest remains in a state of natural gas. 

The petroleum strata are generally met with in the vicinity of mountains, and it may be granted that geological upheavals have dislocated the ground in such a way as to permit of the admission of water to great depths. If the center of the earth contains great masses of metallic carburets, we may, in case this theory is verified, count upon an almost inexhaustible source of fuel for the day when our coal deposits shall fail us.