Gilsonite

The primary ingredient in that product is a natural ore called Gilsonite, which Nunes said acts like a natural asphalt when melted.

She said the Gilsonite will fill the cracks in the asphalt and help seal it so that water can’t get in.

By wagon, then by railroad, the company hauled out sacks of Gilsonite, as the substance came to be known, to use in coloring black paints, waterproofing roofs, blacking inks and even paving streets.

The place: American Gilsonite Co.'s new $14 million refinery outside Grand Junction, Colo. There, as Colorado's Steven L. R. McNichols and Utah's George Dewey Clyde each pulled a handle, water gushed from a pipeline, turned black with particles of Gilsonite.

Gilsonite is one of nature's freaks, a petroleum-like substance which, through geologic accident, failed to liquefy.