The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1891-01-14
IN SHELBY COUNTY.
A Diminishing Pressure, ButNo Certain In
dications of Exhaustion.

A Diminishing Pressure, ButNo Certain In
dications of Exhaustion.
SHELBYyILLE. Ind, Jan. 10.-lSpeclal. i
Your correspondent, in compliance with
instructions, has interviewed many of the
gas men of this city touching the source,
pressure and probable duration of gas in
quantities sufficient for domestic uses.
The cause of the decreasing pressure of
the gas where used from mains, if rightly
understood, is not surprising, nor is it a
sign that the valuable fluid is destined to
fail. In the first place the plan of boring,
tamping and piping gas for domestic and
illuminary purposes has been the most
reckless and unphilosophical of all the
adventures of modern times.
Capitalists and gas men have regarded
the gas as mere matter of prehistoric x
istence and have imagined that it has
stored itself away in such compressed con-
dition as to have an ineXhaustive eXpans-
Utility, sufficient not only in volume but
also In pressure to insure its constant use
for an Understandable period of time.
Pressure is the result of resistance and re-
sistance is the destruction of gas wells.
That gas wells lose their pressure from con-
sumption, all gas people now admit,
though few have admitted that artificial
reservoirs must finally be adopted if we
expect to continue the use OF natural gas
for fuel and l~lluminary purposes. Under
the present system of utilizing gas, 70
per cent. OF the gas is.lost by leakage from
the mains and by being forced into the
porous strata of sand, shale and clay from
the assures caused by shooting wells.
Take, for instance, the gas line from
Greenfield to Shelbyville, a distance of
20 miles; say the pressure at the wells is
2l0 pounds to the square inch. The loss
of pressure in forcing it through an S
inch main is Z pounds to the mile. which
makes a loss of 40 pounds of pressure,
leaving but 20 pounds pressure when it
gets to the city limits. Again, a governor
is attached and more resistance made
which reduces the pressure to the con-
sumers. Finally the pressure is reduced
to less than one pound to the square inch,
usually to about z unces. Practically,
then, the entire 20 pounds pressure is
turned upon the weak points Of the we'll,
which is full of flaws and leaks. In the
first place, the crest or roofof the gas peck
ct has been shattered and riven by
explosions and the we'll tamped
at some point, usually about two hundred
feet above the bottom of the wells, and
when the resistance is made necessary to
give the gas pressure, IL Is forced into the
assures and through the porous strata of
the earth into pockets of drift, and many
times 10 the very surface of the earth.
The gas mains are also subject 10 great ex-
pansion and contraction, and where the
resistance is applied the mains leak from
one end to the other. Under the present
system too much is required of Natures
forces. Noresistance should be made to the
-.- -Hl - - g. IL IL
earth should be made easy. The pressure
should be made ontop the earth by means
of reservoirs. 1t would be folly to assume
that artificial gas could be supplied for use
with sufficient pressure derived from the
point of generation, and why should we
expect that spontaneous generation of gas
should be strong enough to furnish pres
sure?
had a talk with Mr.. Kamp, superin-
tendent OF the Southern Indiana gas COM
pany, and he is OF the opinion that much
pressure is lost in transmission, and that
the pressure continues to decrease by the
consumption OF gas. He says that when
the company turned the gas on last year
there was a How of something over > ,0O0,-
900 feet of gas per day, and although sew
eral wells have heen added there is a flow
OF less than 16,000,0 900 feet per day. He
AAAlhC NAdN NV OC bdNCd ny ublhS
smaller pipe at the wells and larger as you
proceed from them to the place OF con-
sumption, thus forming miniature reser-
voirs for the gas.
b. 5. Sutton, president of the Shelby
vile gas, water and oil company, is of the
same opinion. G.. Il. Erdhouse. an old
gas man, is of the opinion hat many
We Is are destroyed by the use of explo-
sives, causing the great volume OF gas to
escape into the sub-strata of tine earth.
This theory is substantiated by the fact
that in all gas fields which have been
tapped the gas escapes even into the soil,
and frequently causes the water in wells
10 taste OF gas. Especially has it been
demonstrated in Shelby county. In Van
Buren, township, near Fountaintown,
where two wells have been anchored, the
well of a farmer became infected with
gas, and, upon investigation, he found a
strong flow of it. He anchored the water
well and piped the gas into his house, and
has been using it as fuel ever since. Last
August, at a point three miles from the
wells at Waldron and St. Paul, on Flat
Rock creek, the surface gas collected in a
reservoir fifty feet below the surface, and
a match being lighted at a point where it
was escaping, an explosion occurred by
which ten acres of earth we're torn 10
pieces Win every appearance OF q vol
cano. Four miles farther west,
on William Patterson's farm,
a tenant was digging a well last Septem-
Der, and when about fourteen feet deep,
having pierced the hard pan, the sane and
gravel began going out the top of the well
and the smell of gas was detected. He
got out as quickly as possible and the well
was abandoned.
From the foregoing facts and the nat
ural order of things it is not a rash con-
clusion that billions of feet of gas escape
from the wells already bored, every hour
in the day. The pressure of natural gas
is evidently diminishing hourly, and
while it is looked upon as a calamity, it is
probably the salvation Of the gas belt.
AT LoGANsPoRr.
An Adequate supply III Proper Safeguards
Are Brnyfha6