4fJ2 ANNtJAL REPORT OF THE Off. Doc. 



Tlnrnght or study, when a moderate knowledge of geology would 

 enable them in most instances to locate anything of value or readily 

 determine, at least, whether an investigation is wise or expedient. 



In my library at home are books containing thousands of pages 

 descriptive of oil and gas, their genesis or origin, and the wells 

 through the State, many dry and some productive. Of these two 

 important factors of manufacture and commerce as well as of do- 

 mestic convenience and comfort, doubtless, there are accessible in 

 our public libraries many books containing elaborate discussions of 

 the same subject and covering in the aggregate fully ten thousand 

 pages. However, it seems to me, as one having given the matter of 

 production and contiuuance of the oil and gas supply, that there is 

 no other problem in the wide domain of practical and economic 

 geology that is further away from entire knowledge and perfect 

 comprehension or solution, and no other subject in this science that 

 so much engages the close and assiduous study and attention, in 

 the gas and oil producing states at least, as the one relating to the 

 location, intelligently and accurately, of productive wells thereof, 

 and ascertaining the certain trend and probable extent of the oil 

 and gas pools or reservoirs, so-called, and the length of time in 

 which they may be expected to afford a supply for practical use. 



In our State, as well as in others, — and notably Virginia and West 

 Virginia — we have the history of the appearance, more than a cen- 

 tury ago, of oil or gas or both issuing in a meagre way from their 

 subterranean source or origin; and, later, the actual finding and 

 locating of some of the pools by tentative or experimental drilling in 

 certain districts. But not until the very recent years were wells 

 located and the valuable results obtained upon any definite geological 

 deduction, rule, method or indicated facts, whereby the driller could 

 intelligently select the site or position of his well with reasonable 

 cartainty of a favorable response to his efforts. 



Hence, the investigations, formerly, were left entirely to the some- 

 what erratic discretion or notion of men, who, without any distinct 

 ideas or knowledge of geology, were seized, perchance, with the vague 

 and indefinite idea of "putting down wells" to find gas or oil, and 

 declining the suggestions of geologists, who in a limited sense at 

 least, had scientific views of ideas with reference to the actual loca- 

 tion and approximate depth from the surface of these desirable 

 products of the rocks and sands ; and who, also, by degrees acquired 

 such additional data and facts from the experimental drilling as to 

 deduce such definite and positive conclusions that eventually became 

 a guide to the driller, who, formerly, was wont to ridicule and dis- 

 parage the scientific views or aspects of the subject and make sport 

 of the well read and carefully trained geologist, his rules, formula 

 and science.- 



Without any claim or assumption of a thorough knowledge or mas- 

 tery of the oil and gas question, nevertheless, I have never been im- 

 pelled to venture into a theory that would define the approximate 

 limits of the "oil and gas fields" or in any sense approve a map, at 

 best conjectural, that would purport to circumscribe or measure the 

 territory whence these products might be derived. The possibilities 

 of paying wells have been so much extended and increased and the 

 outlying and isolateft oil or gas districts and the "lonely" productive 

 wells are so far apart from the original districts as traced on the 



