BULLETIN OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 



Vol. 1, pp. 87-98. March 1, 1890 



ORIGIN OF THE ROCK PRESSURE OF NATURAL GAS IN 

 THE TRENTON LIMESTONE OF OHIO AND INDIANA. 



BY EDWARD ORTON. 



(Read before the Society December 26, 1889.) 



CONTENTS. 



Page 



The Importance of the Product 87 



The Kock Pressure 88 



Theories of Origin of Rock Pressure .__ 89 



The Data for the Hydrostatic Theory 90 



The Test of the Hydrostatic Theory 92 



The Laws of Gas Production 93 



The Duration of Gas Supply 94 



Discussion 95 



The Importance of the Product. 



Natural gas derived from the Trenton limestone has supplied during the 

 last year and is now supplying all the fuel and a considerable part of the 

 artificial light that is used by at least four hundred thousand people in 

 northwestern Ohio aud in central Indiana. Within the same limits it is the 

 basis of a varied line of manufactures, the annual product of which will make 

 an aggregate of many millions of dollars. More than forty glass furnaces, 

 not one of them three years old, are now in very successful operation within 

 the territory named, while iron and steel mills, potteries and brick works, 

 and a long list of factories in which cheap power is a desideratum, have been 

 built up on all sides with wonderful rapidity. 



The largest gas production of the Trenton limestone that has yet been 

 reached is to be credited to the present year. A well drilled early last 

 summer at Stuartsville, six miles north of Findlay, produced through the 

 casing, a pipe 5 1 inches in diameter, 28,000,000 cubic feet 'of gas every 

 twenty-four hours. There are but few wells in any field that exceed these 

 figures. Most of the wells so reported have been estimated, not measured. 



An equally astonishing advance has been made in the oil production of 

 this rock within four counties of northwestern Ohio. Single wells drilled 

 during the last year have begun their production at a rate of 10,000 barrels 



XII— Bum,. Geo:.. Soc. Am., Vol. 1, 1889. ( 8 



