Year: 1861

| There afe evidences OF geological
disturbance in the form of an uplift or
both sides Of the Ohio river at Newport
This disturbance can be traced up Cow
Creek, Virginia. and on south for thirty
or forty miles, to the great wells on hit
tie Kanawha. In some places along thi'
line the rocks are inclined at an angle
of fifty degrees with the horizon. 1t il
little remarkable that at so many pointS
on this line the oil is found, viz At the
Burning Spring, Rathbone's) on thu
Little Kanawha, Writ county, Virginia,
on Hughes river, at Petroleum, where
there are several paying wells; at Cow
rcck, near the late Willard place, where
there are strong oil springs, and at New.
ellis Run, Ohio, where gas and oil
springs are found, and soIsc superior oil
has been 5btained. Where the strata
are dlsocdted there are Ct course more
assures and crcvices in which the OF!
may be accumulated.


But it should be bornG in mind that
no we'll is inexhaustble. No fissure eau
endure the drain of stcdm pump for a
very long time There must of nccessi
ty, be diminu.ionof supply. There are NO
great reservoirs Of oil, no subterranean
lakes which may afford an almost indef-
mite supply of the precious fluid. There
is no evidence that the oil is found any
where except in crevices, which are more
or less vertical. Where several wells
are in the same neighborhood, it would
be unusual to find them striking oil at
the same depth below the surface. |
know of a productive well twenty-tltrce
feet deep near another productive one
which is over two hundred feet deep
OF course. then, there can be no such
thing as u special oil rock or stratum
The oil Is in assures which may be found
in every kind of rock We sometimes
hear meh who have bored Scls in the
Northerh Pennsylvania oil Region, speak
very positively Of our rocks, and declare
the exact depth, aud in wi!at peculiar
kind of rock, we may find the oil here
in the Coal Measures. All such claims
are idle, because it is impossible to raa-
son analogicalIy between two entirely
distinct groups of rocks which lie fifteen
hundred feet apart in vertical distance.
| There is with US, in this region, no oil
rock. You may strike oil thirty feet
down, or at three hundred feet down.
Nor, again, can anything be determined
beforehand from the form or proximity
of the hills. Some would bore at the
entrance of a side valley, others at the
point of bold, high hill. Both arc
right if they happen to strike an oil fis-
sure and wrong if they do rot. Some,
again, having found fissure from which
oil cxudes, would begin to bore in the
top of the fssurc. This is doubtful
policy, for all cracks deviatc more or less
from perpendicular line, and well bo-
red perpchdicuIarly would be sure to
lose the fissure.


Again little can be learned from oil
springs in regard to tho quantity of oil
below the surface. \ paratively
small tissurc with little oil in Il, if there
be much water to force up the oil, might
make quite show of oil, while a large
fissurc nearly filled with oil might have
no outlet whatever. An oil spring is OF
no value except to show that in that To-
cality the conditions essential to the gen.
Grafton of oil have been present. The
quantity of oil can only be learned from
actual experiment. You are sure of a
paying well after you have found it hev-
or before.


Oil signs are often falacious. There
is sometimes Il lin upon water that re-
scmblcs oil, which is not oil The little
globulcs sometimes detached from rock
or from sand and mud, and which rise
upon the 'aater and break and spread
themselves, often giving ont most bril-
liant colors, are uumistakably oil But
the film which appears as you dig in the
mud and ground must be received with
great caution There is sometimes on
streams below oil springs collection of
scum. of yellowish brown color, which
is the parain of the oil, and without o.
dor. This scum so greatly csembles
another kind found on almost all running 9
brooks that there is great difficulty in
making the distinction. There is also a
kind of iron rust often found on stand
ding or sluggish water that somcwh re-
scmblcs oil. 1t, however, readily breaks
up. and if collected in vial will sink to
the bottom.