The Kennewick courier-reporter. [volume] (Kennewick, Wash.) 1914-1938, 1916-05-11
Letters From the People
Editor Courier-Reporter:

Joyed to the limits the free samples
Of natural gas handed out in unlimited
quantities by the different speakers
to the doubling Thomases.
The speakers insisted that the pub
lie should ask questions regarding the
oil and gas propositions. Three ques-
tions suggest themselves, the ans
wers to which believe would interest
a good many of your readers and
would help to awaken an interest in
an epoch that appears to be near at
hand in this section Of the northwest.
What is the altitude at the point
where the gas in the much-talked-of
well first leaves the earth? Has any
other well been put down to the same
depth as this one on the same or lower
altitude; within radius of fifty miles
of this one? If not how could anyone
without more data than this one well
furnishes chart and explain the Rat
tlesnake oil and gas dome, giving its
dimensions in square miles and pecul-
lar formations, as one speaker at
tempted to do with the same assurance
as tho this particular dome had been
built after plans and specifications of
his own designing. No doubt but what
oil and gas exist in that vicinity, but
as yet no one has the knowledge or
authority to say thus far and no far
ther. All the oil experts agreed that
this hole was not one-half the depth
it should be to get maximum results.
From Kennewick we see long
chain of low buttes, starting near Ho-
yer, passing to the south of us and
disappearing in the far northwest.
Jump Office is directly south of us
and either smiles or frowns down on
Kennewick, according to the moods of
the seasons. Rattlesnake butte is the
most prominent in this chain Of buttes
and shows frosts and SHOWS on its
crest when other nearby places are
barren.
One speaker said he had examined
the surface of Rattlesnake closely and
had found oil indications in its sand.
rocks, fossils, shell fish and bones of
mastodons. Now if the size Of these
bones has anything to do with oil.
I am sure if the gentleman could
have seen those unearthed on the
north side of Jump Office a few
years ago, he would certainly have an
oily taste in his mouth the rest Of his
days.
Another speaker said that these
underground streams or deposits of
oil are as irregular as the streams of
water on the surface; narrow in some
places and widening out into lakes in
other places.
Just across the Yakima river from
Richland is low butte that from the
summit suggests that it was at one
time an active volcano, but in its pent-
up fury had blown the top Of its own
head off. From this point it is sew
eral miles across the plain to where
the old Ledbetter ditch approaches
the Northern Pacific tracks west Of
Vista. The surface Of this whole flat
is almost identical with that where
the flow Of gas now is.
One speaker referred to Old Spindle
Top, an article in back number OF
the Saturday Evening Post, describing
a great southern oil field. When it
was stated that every well Of given
depth in certain area was producer
and outside that area were busters,
or barren, but that knowledge was OBJ
tanned after, and not before, drilling,
and as this oil field has not been defin-i
ed by actual tests it would seem that
indications are just as good nearer
Kennewick.
Some Of the speakers referred to
this movement as gamble that
should be gone into cautiously. But
all of the worlds inventions and dis
coveries are gamble, and while many
Of these have proven disastrous to
the individual, they have helped man.
kind in general.
Today we owe our presence in this
particular spot and our absence from
the awful war scenes in Europe to the
fact that Christopher Columbus gam
bled with other peoples treasures in
irving to find new continent, or as
they expected it at the time, new
world.
We here at Kennewick believe that
an all-wise Providence who watches
over and fixes the destin;es Of nations.
intended by many natural resources
that this should become an important
place on the map, both in national
and international commerce, and we
cannot imagine how Dame Nature
could be so cruel as to place these
oil and gas fields where Kennewick
xuo,,1d have Tn NAV second to any