THE CRITICISMS OF THE "ANTICLINAL THEORY" OF NATURAL CAS.- 



READ AT THE BUFFALO MEETING OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE 

 ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE, AUGUST, L886, BY I. C. WHITE. 



Through inexcusable carelessness (for I cannot be so uncharitable as to charge 

 intentional misrepresentation), the critics of the "anticlinal theory" of natural gas 

 liave invariably misapprehended its claims, and criticised something other than 

 this theory as held and promulgated by the writer. 



My critics have almost invariably written about the theory as though it had been 

 claimed that large gas wells could be found everywhere on every anticlinal roll, 

 and in no other situation whatever. Messrs. Ashburner, Chance and Carll, of the 

 Pennsylvania survey, have all set up for themselves this " man of straw," and of 

 course easily demolished him, since no one with whom I have any acquaintance 

 has ever held or published any such theory of natural gas occurrence as they com- 

 bat. The eminent director of the Pennsylvania geological survey, in his presi- 

 dential address at Ann Arbor last year, found occasion to refer to the " exploded 

 anticlinal theory of natural gas " as a splendid piece of "dead work," accomplished 

 presumably by the critics already mentioned. It is true that this " dead work" 

 has effectually buried the anticlinal theory as put forth by these critics, for neither 

 the writer nor any one else ever held such a theory ; but substantially all that I 

 have ever claimed for it has now been so thoroughly established by the " live 

 work" of the drill, that no geologist, well informed on the subject, will be so i*ash 

 as to deny the fact. 



The gentlemen who have so freely criticised the "anticlinal theory "seem to 

 have stopped reading my first paper on the subject, in Science of June 2P>, 1885, 

 when they came to the limitations placed on the theory. On no other hypothesis 

 can I understand the grounds of their opposition. Those who have interest enough 

 in the matter to desire to read my papers on the subject will find all of them in the 

 "Natural Gas supplement " of the American Manufacturer; and after having done 

 so, they will find that the essence of it all is, that the .meat supplies of natural gas 

 have accumulated in the rock reservoirs, in regions of disturbance by which the 

 reservoirs in question have been elevated above contiguous areas of the same beds, 

 and in the lower levels of which oil and water may be expected ; or, in other words, 

 uas lias accumulated where anticlinals or monoclinals of considerable (but not too 

 great) extent have raised the rocks into arches and other forms of elevation ; and 

 hence, as Professor Orton says, structuri is the main element in the occurrence of 

 Lias and oil in large quantity. 



The theory teaches that it is useless to bore for large gas supplies in a region 

 where there are no considerable or irregular dips, and hence its negative value is 

 of great importance, since in my own experience but a single failure has been 

 made in condemning such regions ; and if any further proof was needed, the larger 

 portion of tiie state of ( )hio bears unmistakable testimony to the negative value of 

 the "anticlinal theory," % 



But probably the strongesi testimony in favor of this theory is the almost uni- 

 versal approval of t lie practical operators. Many of these, I find, have been guiding 

 their own operations on I he same principle for many years, and I very much doubt 

 whether a single operator in Pennsylvania could lie induced to drill for gas in a 

 well marked syncline. 



► Read by title only at the meeting of the \. \. L 8. in Buffalo, Uigust, 1886; subsequently pub- 

 lished in The Petrol > foi No ember, 1886 (vol. v, pp. 1464, 1465), from which it is reprinted. 



