PROCEEDINGS OF THE ACADEMY AND AFFII^ATED 



SOCIETIES 



GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



The 334th meeting of the Society was held in the Auditorium of the 

 Cosmos Club on Wednesday evening, April 9, 1919, at 8.00 p. m. 



Program 



C. E. Van Ostrand: Temperatures in some deep wells in the United 

 States. 



During the past few years observations of temperature have been 

 made in deep wells located in Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and West 

 Virginia. The apparatus used in making the tests was capable of an 

 accuracy of about 0.2 or 0.3° F. for depths of about 4000 feet, while 

 for greater depths the error may have risen in a few instances to o . 5 ° F. 



The depth temperature curves, instead of being a straight line, as 

 would be expected from cosmological hypotheses, are generally curves 

 with a marked convexity toward the axis of depth. In the case of the 

 Goflf Well, for example, the rate of temperature increase varies contin- 

 uously from I ° F. in 97 . 5 feet at the surface, to i ° F. in 46 . 5 feet over 

 the interval, 6000 to 7000 feet. 



Temperatures at the same depth in the Texas and Oklahoma fields, 

 differ widely from those in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The tem- 

 perature of the oil in two wells near Mannington, West Vriginia, is 

 83.2° F. at a depth of about 2900 feet. No record of oil temperature 

 was obtained in the Southwestern fields but an extension to a depth of 

 3400 feet of the depth temperature curves of five wells in the vicinity 

 of Ranger, Texas, indicates that the temperature of the oil in the rocks 

 is about 135° F. The average rate of temperature increase at the sur- 

 face for thirteen wells in Texas and Oklahoma, is 1° F. in 51 .5 ± 0.8 

 feet; the same for twelve wells in Pennsylvania and West Virignia is 

 i°F. in9i.5 ± 1.2 feet. 



E. W. Berry: Present tendencies in paleontology. — It is difficult to 

 get into a sufficiently detached frame of mind correctly to visualize 

 the true position of the United States in the present status of paleon- 

 tology. We undoubtedly exhibit a provincialism and a radicalism 

 that goes with young nations as with young individuals. The future 

 belongs to us if we keep our ideals high enough. The paleontologic 

 sun is setting in Europe while the dawn is just breaking in America. 



Progress in paleontology can only result from the action and reaction 

 of the two parallel lines of human endeavor, namely, the accumula- 

 tion of facts through exploration, research, and discovery, and the eluci- 



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