Investigations into the nature of the organic matter in oil-shales began at the time of the famous Torbanehill case in 1854, when experts attempted to settle the question as to whether the substance known as “ Torbanite ” or “ Boghead Mineral” was a coal or an oil-shale. Several witnesses at the trial (Gillespie v. Russel, Session Papers, 1854) maintained that the oilproducing material in the Mineral was of organic origin, while others pronounced it to be bituminous and produced by subaqueous eruptions. T. S. Traill, M.D., proposed for the Boghead Mineral the name “ Bitumenite,” as it seemed to him to “ consist of much bitumen, mingled with earthy matter” (Trans. Roy. 8oc. Edin., 1857, xxi. p. 7). Dr Redfern (Quart. Jonrn. Micros. Soc, 1855, x. pp. 118-119), on the other hand, supposed the round orange-yellow bodies which occur in torbanite to have had their origin in "“ a mass of vegetable cells and tissues which have been disintegrated and otherwise changed by maceration, pressure, and chemical action, and subsequently solidified."” C. E. Bertrand and B. Renault (Bull. Soc. Hist. Nat. Autun, 1892-3) on microscopic examination have classed these bodies as the remains of gelatinous algae which have been altered by bacterial action.