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formula has been arrived at, and isin common use, which is 
regarded as satisfactory, but, when we come to pressures of 
hundreds of feet of water, such as we must have in some of 
these well holes, I do not believe it has any reliability. Other 
problems relate to the best places at which to bore, in view of 
the varying contour of the surface, to reach the gas horizons 
with least work. These are problems which must be solved 
jointly by the engineer and the geologist. 
It may not be without interest to attempt some calculations 
as to the amouut-of gas that can be relied upon in the future 
from this source. The gas has been known to expel columns 
of water more than 700 feet in height. It would be fair then 
to admit the existence of tensions of compression, of twenty 
atmospheres. Ifthe porosity of the rock is only five per cent. 
of its volume, the whole gas would then assume at the surface 
the volume of the rock itself Then if the three New York 
belts are 200 miles long and equal in mass to 10 miles wide 
of 100 feet thickness (a moderate allowance) they will supply 
more than 8000 wells like the Bloomfield, for over 100 years. 
These figures, though stupendous, do not amount to practical 
inexhaustibility, and I suggest that legislative action ought 
to be taken in the gas-producing States, to prevent waste of 
this precious natural product. It may be objected that no 
man can be prevented from boring any holes he chooses on 
his own farm, and from leaving them unsealed afterwards ; 
but it appears to me, on the contrary, that the same principle 
ought to apply here, as in the case of streams of water on the 
surface, which no man could legally, or with impunity, divert 
from his neighbor’s property, and cause to run to mere waste. 
In conclusion, I will venture to enounce, as my own con- 
viction, which (however visionary it may be deemed by many; 
I claim to be strictly founded on induction from known facts), 
that throughout large sections of the United States (through- 
out the middle tier of counties in western New York, for ex- 
ample), every town, nay, every house in the land, ought to be 
both warmed and lighted by gas drawn from the bountiful 
bosom of Mother Earth, without money and without price. ~ 
