200 I. C. WHITE — THE MANNINGTON OIL FIELD. 



burg coal lias an altitude of 950 feet above tide, which is where the eastern 

 cduc occurs at Mount Morris, and the gas belt begins ; and hence, had 

 the first location at Mannington been made without taking into account 

 a possible thickening, the well would have been too far westward, and a 

 dry hole or salt water would have been the certain result. The amount 

 of this eastward shifting of the strike of the oil sand compared with the 

 strike of the surface rocks between Mount Morris and Mannington is 

 something more than half a mile, and is exhibited to the eye on the ac- 

 companying map by following the 1,000 feet (deration of the Waynesburg 

 coal between the two points. The black line representing the strike of 

 this bed at that elevation will be seen to lie east of the oil belt at Mount 

 Morris, hut at Mannington the oil belt is found with its eastern edge just 

 east of this 1.0(H) feet strike line. 



Since this Mannington test well was drilled, about 200 others have 

 been sunk along the belt, as previously defined by me. between Mount 

 Morris and Mannington; and the correctness of my theoretical work has 

 been demonstrated by the drill in opening up along this belt through 

 Marion and Monongalia counties one of the largest and most valuable 

 oil fields in the country. Fewer dry holes have been found along this 

 belt than on any other oil belt known to me, not more than 5 per cent 

 of the wells drilled within the defined limits proving totally dry. 



It is notclaimed that this same chain of reasoning can be applied with 

 like successful results to the discovery and development of every great 

 oil field that yet lies hidden below the surface of the Appalachian plateau. 

 but it is believed that a correct understanding and appreciation of the 

 principles involved and used in the discovery of the Mannington oilfield 

 cannot fail to prove most useful and helpful to both operator and geolo- 

 gist in limiting the expensive exploration of the drill to regions where 

 the geological structure would indicate favorable locations for oil deposits. 

 Of course no sedimentary bed can extend indefinitely in any direction, 

 or even for considerable distances, without undergoing a change in the 

 character of its constituent elements. The individual particles of which 

 it is composed must vary in size, and the cementing material, or lack of 

 it, must be an ever-changing quantity. For these reasons any oil rock 

 must be quite variable in porosity, and hence its productiveness cannot 

 be a constant amount. Where the oil sand is a mere bed of coarse gravel 

 or pebbles like that in the famous McDonald region of Washington 

 county. Pennsylvania, or in the great Russian oil field, then the produc- 

 tion of an oil well seems to be limited only by the size of the bore hole; 

 while, on the contrary, the producing rock may become so close and com- 

 pact within a few feet from a huge producer as to be practically barren 

 of oil. This fact was strikingly illustrated recently at McDonald, Penn- 



