102 DE. EOBEET BELL ON 



The petroleum field of Ontario may be described, in a general way, as situated near 

 the south-western extremity of the province, and on rocks of Devonian age, overlaid by a 

 considerable thickness of drift. The " gum-beds," above referred to, are situated on the 

 level and wet clayey land in the southern part of the township of Enniskilleu and in the 

 northern range of Dawn adjoining ; and in 1860 some oil was obtained by digging wells 

 in the clay at this locality — one of them sunk by Mr. James M. Williams, of Hamilton, 

 reaching the rock. On February 19th, 1861, W. James Shaw astonished the country by 

 striking " rock-oil " in an artesian well which he sank in the shales and limestones beneath 

 the drift clay at this place, to which the name of " Oil Springs " was now given, and 

 which soon became a large village. It was here that the great flowing wells were struck 

 in the winter of 1860-61. The oil then escaped so rapidly that many thousands of barrels 

 were lost before it could be controlled or the means provided for saving it. When the 

 writer visited the locality in the spring of 1862, the trunks of the trees, over a considerable 

 extent of low ground, were blackened to a height of several feet by the oil which had 

 temporarily flooded the neighborhood. The drift clay is here from seventy to eighty-five 

 feet in thickness, and is followed by 1*70 to 185 feet of soft bluish drab shale or marl, the 

 " soapstone " of the drillers. This is succeeded by the Corniferous limestone, into which 

 the wells were sunk only about ten feet, or to a total depth of 260 feet from the surface, 

 where the best flow of oil was obtained. In 1 886-8*7, many pumping wells were pro- 

 ducing oil at a depth of about 100 feet below this level. 



Soon after the discovery of petroleum in the underlying solid rock at Oil Springs, 

 wells were sunk a little to the north of the ceutreofEnniskillen, where surface indications 

 of oil had been observed. A considerable number of them proved to be flowing wells, 

 and they afforded large quantities of petroleum for several months, but one by one, they 

 were all at length reduced to pumping wells ; and as the number of borings increased, the 

 average yield of each diminished, or the wells gave out altogether. Since that time, how- 

 ever, the total quantity of oil produced each year has been kept up or increased by con- 

 stantly sinking larger numbers of new wells, the process of well-boring and pumping 

 having been greatly simplified and cheapened. 



The Corniferous limestone, having been supposed to be the oil-bearing stratum in 

 Enniskillen, and the same formation being found to contain petroleum in its cavities in 

 various parts of south-western Ontario, boring for oil in these rocks was soon commenced 

 at random in numerous localities underlaid by this formation before the distribution or 

 mode of occurrence of the fluid was known to be governed by any law. These eflbrts 

 resulted in finding petroleum in small quantities in widely separated places, as well as in 

 the more productive amounts which were discovered at Bothwell, twenty-thi'ee miles 

 south-east of Petrolia ; in Oxford, east of London ; and near Tilsonburg in Dereham, in the 

 country between London and Long Point. The general want of ultimate success of these 

 enterprises, except in Enniskillen, and the low price of oil, soon confined operations to that 

 township. By degrees the area of the petroleum field came to be pretty accurately defined. 

 Before this had been accomplished, all sorts of theories had been indulged in as to the 

 course which the supposed " oil-bearing belt " should take, and later as to the form and 

 extent of the productive territory. Meantime, the mode of occurrence of petroleum and 

 its relations to geological structure were being investigated elsewhere. 



The anticlinal theory in connection with the accumulation of gas and petroleum was 



