1878.] *" [Ashburner. 



Oil Well Records in McKean and Elk Counties, Pennsylvania. 

 By Chas. A. Ashbtjrnei:, M.S. Assistant Geological Survey. 

 {Bead before the American PMlosopldcal Society, August 1G, 1878). 



The demand for accurate well records in the northern oil field has he- 

 come very great, from the eagerness with which the producers have sought 

 to find petroleum, outside of the limits of the Bradford development. 

 Most of the explorers, from the way in which their wells are drilled 

 by contractors, are unable to keep a complete and correct record of the 

 rocks through which the drill passes, yet they are ever anxious to procure 

 reliable records from other sources to aid them in their "wild cat" 

 operations. 



During the past two years I have been able to obtain through the assist- 

 ance of Mr. M. M. Schultz of Wilcox, a number of extremely valuable 

 and interesting records of wells drilled in the vicinity of that village. Mr. 

 Schultz by his untiring perseverance has succeeded in getting records of 

 no less than six wells drilled to an average depth of over eighteen hundred 

 feet. All have been kept with the greatest care and most of them under 

 his personal supervision. 



No complete register of all the rocks passed through by the drill has 

 ever been kept by any of the producers in the Bradford oil field. In De- 

 cember, 1S77, Prof. Lesley appointed .Air. Arthur Hale, of the Survey, to 

 the special work of obtaining a correct record of the Dennis & Co.'s Well, 

 No. 1, which was about to be drilled on the high summit to the sjouth-wesl 

 of Bradford. 



All of these records together with a more minute description and fuller 

 discussion of the rocks drilled through, will he found in my forthcoming 

 report of progress in McKean and Elk Counties. I have been induced to 

 communicate to the Society a few of the more valuable well records for 

 immediate reference prior to he publication of the report. 



The position of the Glean ( onglomerate above the mouth of each well is 

 given in feet in order that a comparison may be made between the several 

 sections. All the rocks of the section are not named for reasons which 

 can lie better appreciated when the report is published. 



The Olean ('onglomerate is the bottom of the Coal Conglomerate No. 

 Nil, or Millstone grit. The Bradford oil producing sand belongs without 

 question to the Chemung Period, or the upper part of No. VIII. 



G. W. Be mis k Co.'s Well, X". 1. 



Owned by C. W. Dennis & Co., situated on the Roger's farm, three- 

 fourths of a mile south 3.")° west of Bradford, Bradford Township, McKean 

 County. 



The record of this well was kept by Mr. Arthur Hale, aid to Mr, John 

 F. Carll, Assistant Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania. 



The well was drilled in December 1877, and January 1878. Mr. Hale 

 made the measurements with great accuracy, the method pursued, to- 



PROC. AMER. PIIILOS. SOC. XVIII. 102. B. PRINTED NOV. 21, 1S7S. 



