Nineteenth annual meeting. 61 



4. "Slate," 2 to 8 feet. 



5. Fort Scott coal, 18 inches to 2 feet. 



6. Shales, arenaceous and argillaceous, about 50 feet. 



7. Limestone, dark, 2 to 3 feet. 



8. Shales, with occasional hard, thin beds of sandstone and limestone, 175 feet. 



9. Sandstone, main gas sand, 42 feet. 



A thin "gas sand" is met with about midway between 7 and 9, and gas comes off 

 coal or slate some forty feet below 9. "Black slate" and thin coal are immediately 

 beneath the main gas sand. In the Brickley well the sandstone includes an inter- 

 calation of thirty feet of shale, and gives a much greater total thickness. The gas 

 sand is about 245 feet below the "cement" rock, which is a very conspicuous feature 

 in the topography of the district. (See geological section.) 



Proceeding east from Fort Scott, the layer limestone, thickening considerably to 

 the eastern limit of the city, is rapidly eroded and totally disappears about the region 

 of the State line; the "cement" rock fails not far beyond, and shales are the outcrop 

 of ravines as far as Drywood creek, on the east of which a sandstone shows itself, 

 with a thin coal seam at the base. Around Nevada, which is much higher than the 

 mouth of Drywood, this sandstone has great development, in places reaching over 

 fifty feet thick. This is the formation which the Missouri geologists have named 

 the Clear Creek Sandstone. In many places it is redolent of oil. The upper sur- 

 face of this sandstone in Nevada is about fifty feet higher than the layer limestone 

 at Fort Scott, but at its outcrop on Drywood creek it is fully fifty feet below that 

 limestone. Proceeding west, buried under shales, it yields the gas in the shallow 

 well north of Deerfield; and buried still further, it becomes the main gas sand of 

 Fort Scott. An examination of the section on the opposite page will make this 

 easily understood, and an understanding of this will make the prospecting for gas 

 in that region more a matter of certainty than without such understanding. A com- 

 plete examination of the Paola gas region has not yet been made, but the tendency 

 of the evidence so far is toward assuming the main gas sand there to belong to the 

 same Clear Creek horizon. The tendency is also toward regarding the Pittsburg 

 (Crawford county) gas as from the same sandstone; and the gas sand at Mound Valley 

 is from very nearly the same horizon. 



The two shallow wells in and near Fort Scott yield their gas from shale, probably 

 locally arenaceous, not far below the cement bed. 



West of Fort Scott, and stretching from north to south of Bourbon county, is a 

 sandstone plateau. Its horizon is immediately above the layer limestone before 

 mentioned, which in its wide extension develops great thickness (40 to 60 feet) as 

 the Pawnee Limestone. The sandstone plateau yields valuable flagstones at Gilfil- 

 lan, Redfleld, and some miles east of Porterville, and also just over the line in Craw- 

 ford county, south of Hyattville. These flagstones are frequently bituminous, and 

 it is this sandstone, under cover of limestone and shale, that yields the oil on Mr. 

 Pease's farm east of Hepler. It is a still higher sandstone under cover which yields 

 the gas north by east of Moran, in Allen county. 



In prospecting for oil and gas in Pennsylvania, theories as to the geological struc- 

 ture have been used to work from. The summit of an unbroken anticlinal slope 

 would appear to promise the best position for a reservoir of gas in any suitable stra- 

 tum,and it would appear that the bottom of a synclinal slope would be apt to have more 

 water than gas or oil. Though exceptions to this rule are found, it may be taken 

 for granted that it is true where other conditions do not modify the general structure. 

 In Kansas, no pronounced anticlinals have yet been observed, though it cannot be 

 doubted that there are well-defined synclinals, though of but moderate depression. All 

 the principal gas wells are in valleys. Those at Fort Scott and Wyandotte are in 



