The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1896-06-29
GREAT OIL FIELDS
YET UNDEVELOPED..
CALIFORNIA; Prospects Would
Excite Pennsylva-
mans.
A. S. CooPER'S VIEWS.
Whole West Side of San Joaquin
Valley Is Rich in Petro-
leum.
WILL BE BIGGEST OIL STATE.
Capital Has Been Timid and There
Has Been Little Intelligent
Prospecting.
WILL BE BIGGEST OIL STATE.

The time is coming when California will
surpass Pennsylvania as an oil State, says
A. S. Cooper, the Southern California
authority on asphaltum mines and oil
wells.
For the last eight years Mr.. Cooper,
who was formerly County Surveyor OF
Santa Barbara, has devoted his entire time
to the study of asphaltum mines and oil
regions, and has collected at Santa Bar
bara most com lete library on the sub
ject as treated by both American and
foreign writers. In addition he has almost
ready for publication book dealing with
these products in California.
There is district $50 miles in length, F"
said he yesterday, ''along the west side of
the San Joaquin Valley that will be q
great oil country. Commencing at Sum
set depot the oil belt extends northward,
following the base of the mountains to
Mount Diablo; in fact it runs as far north
as Point Arena.
'On the coast side there is oil, too. 1t
crops out all along to the southwark, as is
shown by the asphaitum mines of San
LUIS Obispo and Santa Barbara counties
and the oil wells already known in Santa
"a,
ties.
Where you strike gas and asphaltum,
the hghtest and the heaviest extremes OF
petroleum, there must be oil somewhere
near.
THE fact is the country has not been
prospected. A little work has been carried
on here and there, but it has generally
been stupidity done.
''If these fields and such surface indica-
tons were in Pennsylvania there would be
more validating than was ever heard of
before. There holes would be bored for
oil from one end of the district to the
other. 1t is a most astonishing fact that
no one has gone into it. 1t seems as
though California capitalists were afraid to
tackle the oil business.
Il believe that California is going to be
a bigger oil producer than Pennsylvania
ever dared to be. They will net be flow
ing wells. They will have to be pumped.
THE Los Angeles wells produce gener-
ally heavy oils with an asphaltum base. /
suppose they will give out after while.
The field is not extensive; it occurs In a
dome and when that is exhausted they
will have to hunt for another.
There is always good Illuminating or
fuel gas wherever oil is found, but the
formation of qualification in California is
too steep for the gas to last long or flow in
continuous stream.
sin the Slsquac, where l inspected q
well owned by Thomas B. Bishop, the gas
was so strong at depth of 910 feet that it
blew water out of the hole and 100 feet
in the air.
''Last Thursday 1 visited a new well a
mile north OF Coalinger, in Fresno County.
They had it capped, but they turned it
loose for my benefit, and oil flowed at the
rate of barrel a minute. 1t is parafine
oil with the high gravity of ID Beaume
/ found that it is an antl-clinal which ex-
tends three or four miles, with good pros
poets of oil being found all along. That is
the best well have seen in this State, but
there are hundreds of others to be de-
veloped some day."