The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-12-10
THE STATES COMPLAINT
Filed at AndersOn-GrOunds on Which
Injunction Is Asked.

AS anticipated, the state yesterday filed
complaint at Anderson, asking an injunc-
ton to prevent the Ohio Oil Company from
wasting natural gas. The complaint was
taken to Anderson by C. c. Shirley, counsel
for the Manufacturers Association, who,
together with Ferdinand Winter of this
city, will assist the attorney general and his
deputy in the litigation.
The complaint, after reciting the discov-
cry of natural gas in 1887, declares that the
deposit of natural gas underlying the gas
belt is used for fuel by the gas-belt counties
and the people of many other counties and
cities of the State, including the cities of
Indianapolis, Fort Wayne, Richmond, Lo-
gansport, Lafayette and Others The COM
plant then continues:
THAT the natural gas underlying the
counties above mentioned, and other por-
tons of the State, is contained in and per-
colates freely through a stratum of rock
known as Trenton rock, comprising a vast
reservoir wherein the gas is confined Under
great pressure, and from which it escapes,
when permitted to do so, through wells
drilled into the Trenton rock, with great
force
STATE HAS MILLIONS AT STAKE.
THAT the fuel and light supplied by the
natural gas is the cheapest and best fuel
known to civilization, and that the value
of the natural gas deposit to the State OF
Indiana, and the citizens thereof, is many
millions of dollars. That since the discovery
of the gas deposit in the year 1886, vast
sums of money have been brought into the
State of Indiana and invested in building
up large manufacturing interests and other
vast sums, belonging to the people of the
State, have been invested in similar inter-
prises by reason of which there has been a
great increase in the population of the
State, and particularly of the territory I'M
DERIVING which the gas is found.
That many cities in and adjacent to the
gas territory, including the cities above
their fuel supply upon the gas drawn from
wells sunk into the reservoir and trans
ported through pipes and condults to the
cities; whereby the people of the State have
become and are greatly interested in the
protection and continued preservation or the
gas supply; that many millions or dollars
invested in manufacturing and other prop
critics, in and near the territory known as
the gas belt of Indiana, are wholly depend
ent for their continued operation and for the
permanent value of their property as well
upon the gas supply; that their location and
establishment in the gas territory was due
to the presence of the natural gas underly-
ing the same, without which the manufac-
turing enterprises could not be operated at
a profit, and that in the event the supply of
gas should be exhausted in the territory
many of the manufacturing enterprises-in
which many thousands of the citizens of the
State find employment at remunerative
wages-will be compelled to suspend opera
tions; that their employees will thus be
thrown out of employment, and that many
of them. being wholly dependent upon their
labor for support, may and Will become
charges upon the State and its municipal
subdivisions that the property of the man
ufacturing enterprises and other vast in
vestments dependent thereon and related
thereto, will become worthless, and the
owners thereof driven to remove to other
State vast wealth now invested in said en-
terprises."