Mohave County miner., 1913-11-22
Utah Gilsonite Huge Resources.

w nlle III SalJ Lake last week JOnn Glenn of Vsrnal, until recently a dep uty United States geological surveyor, gave the following to the Herald Re- publican as the result of nea.ry thirty years observation of the hydrocarbon resources of the great Uinta Basin country:
 "The hydrocarbons constitute the greatest mineral wealth of the Uinta basin. Several of these minerals are found in paying quantities, but there IS more gilsonite than all the other hydrocarbons combined. It might properly be termed a new mineral. Strange as it may seem, gisonite is not found in commercial quantities in any other place. It is pure asphaltum in resinous state, jet black and re- sembles coal in appearance, but is bright and glossy and melts like resin when subjected to heat. It mixes readily with any kind of oil while melted and forms gum or tar accor- ding to the amount of oil added There are few people in the basin who have not indulged in chewing that kind of gum.
 "Unlike coal, it is found like many of the precious metals in true Assure vons that cut the earth's surface to unknown depths. The veins vary from an inch to twenty feet in thick ness and from few hundred feet to fifteen miles in length.
 'Imagine bed of coal seventeen feet wide and fifteen miles long as straight as an engineer could lay it out, that showed over the hilltops, down the slopes and through the val ley, that can be followed as easily as road-and you have an idea of the ex. ,erior appearance of q large gilsonite vein. Turn your minds eye downward and look into the earth. Think of this deposit filling space wide as your parlor, fifteen miles long and of un- known depth. Then you have an idea of the quantity in one vein. Then think that there are many veins cover- ing an area fifty miles long and twenty miles wide and you are lost in wonder at the amount of this mineral in the basin.
 Where did it all come from and what awful forces of nature opened those wonderful gashes in the earth's surface? It had to be in a liquid state when it filled the veins and must have come from the underneath. All the veins were surely filled from the same source. That source was a great reservoir of petroleum underlying the entire field. That source stlll remains underneath and can be tapped by drilling.
 "Another indication of oil underly- Ing the basin is the oil sauds or sand asphaltum as it is called locally crop. ping on higher ground around the edges of the basin. The croppings form continuous chain several hun dred miles long, extending around the entire basin. From all sides the for nation dips to the center, indicating that the entire basin is underlaid with oil sands. In many places streams of oil and asphaltum resembling tar flow from the croppings during the hot weather. In other places oil comes up with water in springs. In one place tunnel was run into the sand and a constant flow of oil developed. There have been-a hundred or more wells drilled near the cropping striking a good grade of oil in most of them at about 700 feet.
 Small veins of asphaltum have been found in most oil fields and have always been sure signs of oil. Where the driller found those veins, he knew there was oil underneath, and drilled without hesitation. There is thou sand times more asphaltum in one vein in the Ulnta basin than in any other field. Strange as it seems this, the plainest indication of oil has been overlooked in this field.
 "The great value of the gilsonite which runs into many millions of dol lars has turned mems minds from a far greater value underneath. There has never been a we'll drilled in the yicipity of tho uilSopita vaino