It will be seen, therefore, that the subject really divides itself under two heads, and it is with the first of these--that of the possibilities of finding liquid oil reserves in commercial quantity in this country--that I will now proceed to deal. For this purpose, it is better that we divide the country into three zones--western, middle, and eastern. The western zone will include the whole of England between the third meridian of West Longitude and the Irish Sea, the Bristol Channel, and the North Atlantic. It will be bounded on the north by a line running near Whitehaven to the mouth of the River Tees, and having the English Channel as its southern boundary. In this zone, the most northern occurrence of petroleum is found at Whitehaven, Cumberland, and the next is found on the Lancashire coast. Other indications are to be found in Denbighshire and in the northern part of the South Wales coalfield. The occurrences of petroleum in what may be described as the middle zone are far more important and numerous than those of the western zone. They are important in the physical conditions to which they are subordinate, and in their greater productiveness. They are more numerous, and their geological position is more in direct relationship with later dynamical alterations in the rock structures. In this zone occurs the most important occurrence which has so far been recorded--I refer to that at Alfreton, in Derbyshire--for it was from this natural flow of petroleum over 70 years ago that Dr. Young, the founder of the Scottish shale oil industry, manufactured paraffin wax. Near Chesterfield is also unmistakable evidence of the presence of liquid oil at depth, for considerable quantities have flowed from the workings at the Southgate Colliery. In this middle zone, too, are the occurrences of petroleum found near Wigan and West Leigh, while flows of oil are recorded from several spots round Barnsley and Ilkeston. The petroleum find at Kelham, near Newark, some few years ago, is important for the reason that the drill in this case, at a depth of somewhere about 2,400 feet, struck true petroliferous sands, underlain by dark, waxy shales. The oil rock has been proved to consist of loose, coarsely grained sand, having all the features of strata in which petroleum is ordinarily met with. The great value of this boring is that it has demonstrated the fact, so long doubted by many of the best geological authorities in Great Britain, that all the geological conditions, dynamical as well as historical, are present in this locality for the formation and subsequent retention of liquid petroleum, and that, as Dr. William Forbes-Leslie puts it, despite all contention to the contrary, a true oil-field exists in England.