The Democrat-sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1906-1935, 1909-03-25

Men who have had the oppor-
tunity of visiting the drilling of
gas or oil well, need no history as
to how the thing is done, but there
are hundreds of us in this vicinity,
though oil and gas are talked to
, us In abundance every day, have
never seen a we'll drilled. The
first thing the company proposing
to drill does, is to get an engineer
that is familiar with the law Of
the oil belt to act as "professional
smellet" and locate well for
them where lie has every reason to
believe that results may reasonably
be expected. Then the company
let's u contract for the drilling Of
the well, and that is usually at
price from $4,000 to $4,000 ac-
cording to whether the CT mpany
has any of the materials on hand.
If they haye drilled well before
and have on their hands many
hundred feet of casing and what
is called u "rig," and that means
u derrick, sheds, pulleys, etc then
these are saved to them and the
drilling .ls much below the first
cost.
To drill we'll, first, four cor
nered frame work is built about 60
feet high over the place where the
hole is to be drilled, and this is
called the derrick In the top of
this frame work there is fastened
a pully over which there runs the
rope to which is attached long
steel drill so feet long that is call
ed "bit," that goes down in the
hole and continues to decend, by
being churned up and down by at
taching to Il cross beam that the
engine teeters up and down like
the old fashioned teeter-tooter of
the plank across fence, that the
little boys enjoy 80 much. The
long so foot drill "bit" stands up
in the derrick and is pulled up and
down by the rope that is attached
over the pully at the top of the
derrick. After the churning with
the drill goes on for while then
the drill is withdrawn and the
sand pump is put down in the hole
and drawn up and the water and
sand are poured out in the field.
When the hole gets down into
the earth about 500 feet through
the different surface soil, the wa
ter begins to get burdensome on
their hands and then the drillers
begin to case the we'll, by putting
in iron tubes in the we'll about the
size of the hole. This shuts out
the water and keeps the we'll from
caving in. Then the churning
goes on and the we'll goes deeper.
The first rock of any moment to
be struck is the "Berea Grit"
This is found at a depth of about
700 feet. In the "Berea Grit" is
often found some oil and gas, but
not often in paying quantities.
The next formation of rock is the
cinnamon. This is a sand rock
and some times not of rock forma-
tion at all, through which the drill
goes easily. In this sand is often
found paying quantities of gas.
The next strata Of rock is the
"shale" and is quite depth of
loose rock, and just beneath this
is the biggest job of all. The "big
lime" comes next and it is about
$50 feet of hard lime stone. This
stone requires the longest time to
puncture and is the hardest on
the drill tool, called the "bit."
Next comes a formation of slate, !
and then the coveted "Clinton"
sand is next which is really sand
stone. In this sand is found the
oil that has made the Bremen oil
field famous. The Clinton sand
in that field is found at depth of
about 1900 feet. If oil is not
struck in the Clinton sand, the
hole is usually Abandoned and
called dry hole, however in the
Bremen field on the Newton farm
the drilier went through the Clin-
ton and not finding any thing,
went on into the Madina sand
many feet and found u pocket of
oil that produces steady flow of
% barrels of oil daily.
There are many difficulties at
tending we'll drilling, such as the
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