ON THE PROSPECT OF OIL BEING FOUND UNDER THE 

 ONTARIO-OHIO-MICHIGAN SECTION OF EAKE ERIE. 



BY THOMAS NATTRESS. 



From Detroit City to the inter-state boundary of Michigan and Ohio 

 on Maumee Bay there is a kmg line of deep wells that have developed 

 pockets of gas and showings of oil. But not even in the Potter well in 

 Erie Township, at the southeast corner of Monroe Coun-ty in Micliigan, 

 and in close proximity of the Toledo field was there more than "some gas 

 and some oil." 



Mr. R. A. Smitii' of the Michigan Survey, reporting upon Monroe 

 County, has stated logically the conclusion for the entire distance 

 traversed: "Monroe County is too far down the western slope of the 

 Cincinnati anticline to contain oil and gas in any great quantity." 



On the Ontario side of the northern reach of the Cincinnati uplift, in 

 Essex County, there is little gas and less oil in the Maiden and Colchester 

 wells; little oil and much gas^in the Kingsville-I>eamington field; and on 

 Pelee Island some gas and some oil. The Ontario-Ohio system of islands, 

 shoals and points of land across Eakc Erie from Pelee Island to Marble 

 Head is also, from all the evidence to be adduced, lateral to a main 

 supply and too far down the eastern slope of the Cincinnati uplift for 

 quantity. 



Eastward of this section there is no indication of any series of anticlinal 

 folds that might hold a main supply. \\'estward there is the Cincinnati 

 dome, with minor transverse folds, at least in the rocks of the later and 

 overlying formations, from the Ohio shore northward to Ballards Reef 

 in Detroit River and the Canard River moutli on the Canadian side of 

 the Detroit. 



Over all this anticlinal section, westward of Pelee Island and Kelly's 

 Island, in which lie East Sister, North Harbor, West Sister and Middle 

 Sister Islands and shoals, there is the same surface extension, the Lower 

 Monroe formation. The only exception to be made to tliis statement is 

 that there is an outer edge of Sylvania Sandrock overlaid by Upi5er 

 Monroe material along the east and west sides, and an outcropping of 

 rock of earlier age on West Sister Island and in spots east and west 

 and south of it. 



I9tli Mich. Acad. Sci. Kept., 1!>I7. 



'Oil and Gas in Michigan, I'nliliratidM s, (Icol. Series ^"i, Michigan (leoi. & Hiol. Siiivi')-, 

 mil, p. 371. 



