The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1892-03-06
Howcroft's Views on Natural Gas.

To the Editor of THE HERALD:
| desire, through the columns of your
paper to present few of my views on
natural gas, pleading for my justification
the Importance of the subject and the
revolution in commercial and manufactur-
ing industries which this rich legacy of
nature will work in our city.
The fact that have been engaged in the
well driving business for the past seven
years, during which time | sunk scores of
wells, will enable me to speak from prac-
tical experience. In 1885, while driving a
well in the Sixth ward, l discovered
natural gas for the first time, and while
not sinking for gas, yet there was every IN
dicatlon OF 1T being present in large guam
titles; these indications were soon fol-
| lowed by splendid flow of water, and
there it runs to-day one of the finest ar
tesian flows in the valley. There have
been many other instances in which have
encountered clear and unmlstakable
| evidences of gas-indeed, l might
! say that in every well l have
driven the signs of its presence
have been positive and certain.
| But all these indications have been con-
| fined to the western portion of the city,
aud my theory is, that q great gas belt en-
!
OF the Jordan river; it is impossible to de-
fine the exact limits of this gas region, but
wherever l have driven wells around the
| foothills on the east, the evidences of gas
have been meagre and uncertain-W hich
seems to indicate that the gas belt termin-
ates, in its eastern limits, around the
| western portion of the city. and from there
continuing indefinitely to the west,
Now word about machinery. In my
digging | have frequently encountered
great difficulties with quick sand, which
eastern made machinery seems unsuccess-
full in overcoming. This, believe, to arise
from the fact that eastern machinery,
however well it may fulfill its purposes
abroad, yet can not successfully per-
form the work here on account of the east
ern maker being unfamiliar with our
local conditions of soil and rock. Machines
can be made here, and have been made
that possess the merit of being free from
those OBJECTIONS; they are made on what is
familiariy known as the letting process. u
which does away with rope tools. tie pecu
liar feature Of the eastern machine; the
jetting machine referred to should not be
confounded with the eastern machine bear
ing the same name, as it is very inferior II
the local letting machine. Our local made
machinery possesses many ADVANTAGES ir
addition to its superior work; it can be
manufactured for one-half the price anC
perform the same amount of work at one
half the outlay, when compared with it.
eastern competitor. For instance: Witt
my five horsepower machine made here,
have attained rapidity Of work not OBJ
talnable with any other n,achinery-enab
ling me to drive 1853 feet of 1115-inch pipe il
the short space Of three and one. hal
hours. l have also demonstrated that tn,
? same rapidity can be made with larger Zip,
and machinery, when the proportion O
size is taken into consideration Witt
a ten horsepower machine I hav
sunk a single string of pipe 631 feet; tn
Importance of this will be recognized whe,
1t is said that in deep well driving it is al
most absolutely necessary to adopt larg
: pipe in the beginning, SO that the pipe cal
be properly reduced in size as the dept
increases. With slight improvements il
my machine, feel confident that coul
reach depth of 1000 feet without the in