60 KANSAS ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 



feet. The lower depth gives the strongest gas. It is of such force and volume as to 

 raise the salt water, which enters at 277 feet, up to the surface, so that it is a flowing 

 well. Owing to doubts relating to the title to the land, this supply is being allowed 

 to run to waste. 



In Allen county the well-known mineral well at lola has always yielded some gas, 

 which at times has been utilized. It enters with salt water in a crevice of 20 inches 

 deep, with black bituminous shale above and below, at a depth of 625 feet. In the 

 same county, north by east from Moran, unused gas is blowing off from a well one 

 hundred feet deep, in a valley drained by the headwaters of the Little Osage. 



Some gas was found in the deep well at Independence, in Montgomery county. 

 At near Liberty, in the same county, a shaft sunk for coal gives off from a black 

 shale, at a depth of 98 feet, a gas which from its odor would be called coal gas. 



In Bourbon county, on the banks of the Marmaton river, on the Stewart farm 

 just southwest of the city of Fort Scott, gas has been known to escape from the ground 

 for more than a quarter of a century. Now, the Economy Fuel Company (Major 

 Knapp, manager) has leased the land, and drilled five wells. Three of these are yield- 

 ing a strong supply, which appears to have about the pressure and qualities of the 

 Paola gas. It is piped to the town through six-inch mains, and, as one of the wells 

 supplies a fair illuminant, it is used both for heating and lighting dwelling houses, 

 the principal hotels, the street-car barn, and many other places. With other wells 

 judiciously located, there can be no doubt but that the supply of this gas will long 

 be an important factor in the progress of the rising city of Fort Scott. The facts, 

 that the gas has been escaping for years, and that the pressure is not nearly so great 

 as in the eastern States, suggest that the supply is likely to be permanent. This is 

 probably true at Paola, also, and more certainly at LaCygne. 



Five miles west of Fort Scott, gas is bubbling in a well about 70 feet deep. In 

 the eastern part of the city itself the same is occurring in a well 100 feet in depth. 

 East-northeast from Fort Scott, seven miles north of Deerfield, in Vernon county. 

 Mo., a similar shallow well gives out gas. At other places on each side of the State 

 line, small quantities of gas have been thus observed, and also of oil. 



There is now much activity in prospecting for gas at places where it has already 

 been found, and at other places removed from the belt when its presence is assured. 

 Among the latter places may be mentioned Quenemo, Ottawa, and Wichita. That it 

 may possibly be found at some places not yet tested, will be seen from a considera- 

 tion of the geology of the localities where the experimental drillings have been suc- 

 cessful. 



The rock gas obtained thus far in Kansas belongs geologically to the lower part 

 of the Lower Coal Measures. Besides the gas wells at Fort Scott, there have been 

 made four other borings at that place, the records of which have been preserved. 

 These four go to greater depths than the gas wells. They are: The Brickley well, 

 south of the city; the Walburn well, near the northeast corner; the Point well, and 

 the artesian well. About the city the Marmaton valley and several smaller ravines 

 are very steep and show ledges of rock. Going east, much erosion has laid bare 

 successive formations. From an examination of these exposures, and a study of the 

 drill records of the well-borings, the geology of the rock gas of this region can be 

 made out fairly well. In the higher parts of the city a coarse fossiliferous limestone 

 is found, in layers of from four to eight inches thick, with a total thickness about 

 the city of from five to fifteen feet. This is followed by formations thus: 



1. The layer limestone, (average) 10 feet. 



2. Black slate, including a thin coal seam, fi feet. 



8. Heavy bed of concretionary hydraulic limestone, called locally "the cement 

 rock," .O feet. 



