Abstract
THE second edition of this work has been enlarged to nearly double the bulk of the first, the scheme remaining the same, and there is little to add to the review which appeared in NATURE of August 8, 1912, except to say that the revision of the work has distinctly improved its quality. The author is still insistent on the importance of the theory of the origin of petroleum, and for him that of vegetable origin and subsequent concentration, controlled by geological structure, is supreme. The treatment of this subject, regarded as of vital importance, is inadequate, in so far that less than six pages are devoted to theories of inorganic origin, and thirty-four to a polemical examination of the hypotheses of animal or vegetable origin; yet there are many facts in the known distribution of petroleum more easily explicable on the supposition of inorganic than on that of organic origin. At present there are grave difficulties in the way of regarding either as even approximately complete, and there is this to be said for the theory and principles of application advocated by the author, that they will lead to correct conclusions in about nine cases out of ten, and in the tenth success will depend mainly on luck, instinct, or intuition. The chapters on field-work are very distinctly improved, the approximate and imperfect methods indicated being relegated to their proper place, as expedients which may have to be resorted to by force of circumstances, and not, as inexperienced readers of the first edition might easily be led to believe, preferable to more exact and thorough methods.
Oil-Finding: An Introduction to the Geological Study of Petroleum.
E. H. Cunningham
Craig
By. Second edition. Pp. xi + 324 + xiii plates. (London: Edward Arnold, 1920.) Price 16s. net.
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Oil-Finding: An Introduction to the Geological Study of Petroleum . Nature 106, 78 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/106078a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/106078a0