1865.] 55 [Lesley. 



These facts alone would suffice to prove the ground under 

 the Paint Creek country charged with gas. But we have 

 nearer evidence. 



The Spradling Well, 4 miles up the creek from Paintsville, 

 and 9 miles down the creek from Lyon's Well, on the Mud 

 Fork of Paint, | of a mile above its mouth, blows gas contin- 

 ually, which burns when lit.* 



The whole of this section of Eastern Kentucky is, in fact, 

 an underground oil region. Judge Harris's well, opposite 

 Prestonburg, in Floyd County, 12 miles up Sandy River, 

 above Paintsville, was bored about 600 feet deep for salt, 

 and abandoned on account of the great flow of oil in 1845. 

 The only record preserved was the fact of going through 



in a state of ebullition by the gas, which, when fired, will blaze up as 

 high a.s a man. When the stream is frozen over, holes are broken in 

 the ice to fire the gas. Two wells have been bored in "Warfield, 20 rods 

 apart, in one of which the auger dropped 14 inches, at about 300 feet, 

 six years ago, and the poles were greased with the ascending oil. The 

 other well flows oil into the stream. Each gets salt water at about 800 

 feet. There seems to be a fault across the Fork, which throws the big 

 coal-bed under for nearly 4 miles. 



* D. T>. Owen thus describes a burning spring in Clay County, in his 

 Kent. Kep., Vol. I, p. 217, as "a constant stream of gas escaping in 

 copious volumes through a pool of water, in a narrow bottom. A lighted 

 match suffices to set the gas on fire, which flashes instantaneously into 

 numerous jets across the pool, continuing to burn until the gas or a gust 

 of wind blows it out. Judging from the color of the flames and the 

 odor of the gas, it seems to be a mixture of heavy and light carburetted 

 hydrogen with some free or uncombined hydrogen. The commotion in 

 the water rendered it too turbid, without filtration, to test it satisfactorily 

 for its saline constituents. Bicarbonate of iron seems to be its principal 

 constituent. The gases must here reach the surface from some deep- 

 seated source, through an extensive fis.sure of the rocks concealed by the 

 debris from the hills, — perhaps from some bed of coal or iron ore ex- 

 posed to surheated steam, or other heat. . . . The elements must be con- 

 tained in the interior of the earth on a vast scale, since the Burning 

 Spring has continued to evolve these gases with unremitting energy 

 ever since the country was known to the first settlers." Through sand 

 and shales of the coal measures, seven salt wells, yielding 130,000 bashels 

 of salt per annum, penetrate to a depth of 1000 feet, getting brine at 121, 

 240, 293, and 552 feet ; at which last depth the strongest is obtained, the 

 auger dropping into cavities from which the brine, black with a car- 

 bonaceous sediment, gushes out, and afterwards grows clear. 



