4 Li DEGOE MER 
factory results, attempting to map the extension of the Tomasopo 
ridge in late 1923. 
About the same time, a Mintrop crew was engaged by the Marland 
Company, as a result of Dr. Van der Gracht’s recommendations. 
Various tries in the Mid Continent from northern Oklahoma to the 
possible extension of the fault line play north of Mexia gave results 
of interest but of doubtful value. A discussion in late October, 1923, 
with F. Park Geyer, then chief geologist of the Marland Company, 
indicated that the method might be developed into one of usefulness 
but had not yet been of practical value. 
In March, 1924, John F. Weinzierl appeared on the Gulf Coast 
with the first seismic crew, a Mintrop crew working under Weinzierl. 
and under the general direction of Alexander Deussen for the Marland 
Company. 
A Mintrop crew was also engaged by the Gulf Production Company 
in 1924 and before the end of the year, the Orchard dome in Fort 
Bend County, Texas, had been found; the first seismic discovery on 
the Coast and possibly the first in the world. 
In view of my own unconvincing experience with the seismograph 
in Mexico, and that reported by Geyer, for the Marland Company, 
in Oklahoma and north Texas, and in view of the recent success of 
the torsion balance at Nash, I was inclined to be skeptical with re- 
gard to the possible value of the seismic method. Repeated successes 
of the Seismos crews for the Gulf, however, soon convinced me that 
the method was one to be reckoned with. Its results were positive, 
the solution obvious, and the speed of coverage very great, in all of 
which respects it was superior to the torsion balance in a highly 
competitive search for shallow salt domes. 
In searching for some one competent to develop seismic methods, 
I became acquainted with Dr. J. C. Karcher who, as early as 19109, 
while a fellow in the Graduate School of the University of Pennsyl- 
vania, had applied for patents on the reflection method and who, with 
the late W. P. Haseman, had been conducting field work in Oklahoma 
as early as 1921. Karcher was engaged to head the work for a new 
company, the Geophysical Research Corporation, organized in May, 
1925. He designed and built instruments and was in the field with a 
crew for the Gulf early in 1926. It seems probable that Udden’s 
famous “Suggestions of a New Method for Making Underground 
Observations,” as published in early 1920, Vol. 4, Bulletin of the 
American Association of Petroleum Geologists, was inspired by Kar- 
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