70 IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



I made the following tests on the water from below the gas : With Potas- 

 sium Ferrocyanide 1 observed no re-action. On evaporating perhaps fifty 

 c. c. a considerable amount of solid matter was obtained. This was some- 

 what of a yellowish brown color and effervesced with Hydric Chloride. 



This solution when tested with Potassium Ferrocyanide gave a deep blue. 

 I was led to believe from these tests that the water contained a cai'bouate 

 and some compound containing iron in solution. My stock of water would 

 not admit of fui-ther tests. 



At a depth of eighteen or twenty feet water has generally been found in 

 this locality, but the supply is variable. Mr. Robt. Lee has a well which he 

 dug several years ago, the water of which was excellent and in good quan- 

 tity. This well is about eighteen feet deep and carefully walled. Last 

 summer he bored for water about one hundred feet from this well. At a 

 depth of a little over one hundred feet he found a little gas issuing at irreg- 

 ular intervals. Immediately after the appearance of the gas the water in 

 the shallow well became muddy and unfit for use and has remained so, 

 though the water seemed to be much worse at times, not periodic. It seems 

 to me the gas rises outside of the casing to the porous bed holding the water 

 of the shallow well and injures the water. 



The country in which these wells are located is comparatively level. In- 

 dications are at hand everywhere of a boggy or peaty nature. There are 

 but few low hills, and no ravines of any note. The soil is a rich, black loam 

 and the whole region is said to be destitute of boulders, so common in many 

 parts of Iowa and especially of Muscatine county. 



Mr. J. E. Lee stated that wells in this region had been sunk two hundred 

 and eighty feet and no rock had been reached. The well in Muscatine 

 county from which gas is used is on the farm of Mr. John Idle, in section 35, 

 township 76, range 4 west. The farmers in the neighborhood of these gas 

 wells ai-e about to complete an arrangement to put down a well two thou- 

 sand to two thousand five hundred feet deep. This is to determine whether 

 there is oil below the gas. 



It is my own opinion that the gas comes from considerable beds of vege- 

 table matter buried in this unusually heavy drift deposit in this I'egion. The 

 area, it seems to me, which is thus underlaid is six or eight miles long and 

 three or four miles wide. I should expect to find the rocks here directly 

 below the drift to be of Devonian age. 



This locality is on the east side of the Cedar river. The nearest well to 

 the Cedar river is about two miles distant. No gas has yet been found on 

 the west of the Cedar. This region is directly on the edge of what I have 

 considered the sub-carboniferous. 



Some eight or ten miles to the south of these wells rock are exposed 

 along the creeks and deep ravines. I have not seen these rocks, but I think 

 Mr. Frank Springer reported several years ago that certain beds of these 

 rocks were well filled with the remains of fish, especially their teeth. 



