Record. XXXI 
IE SPOON Ser ei Pe ek Ma Satake Ms Melle ois dame emaees 440—495 feet 
URIS: DROWN; GAM ia cb ah bp eee binae obicinieeoUWe oe ued aes 495—505 feet 
EAMESTONGS: oss o'o cla sigit: dis os: cia be ebaw e.cie EA chle abida nia puiwihamiats 505—530 feet 
ale: GAL ee ey ieee Ure a alan 530—540 feet 
AIG MUTI occ dala tes We Mike Gherae a a a ieignarel eee atacs ens 540—575 feet 
RIIMORIORR CTS: | cidk sid yee ib miodly © hms cebu eR eee te mance 575—610 feet 
SIG “STONE eid ds tabs dees KOU Oss Tidum) kee acheter @ro-uedo te auaiaka 610—680 feet 
RIG, DIME CEOVOR EI ss ire iasinns We SC cinaie Sisce em dings 680—710 feet 
Dai Secrets ala ne a ree ne ee eS dew sree 710—765 feet 
First gas found at 505 (under the brown shale) and more gas at 
760 feet with a little heavy, black oil; salt water occurs at 550 feet and 
sulphur water at 764, this overflows in a small quantity; hole is 8 inches 
in diameter and cased to 600 feet; tools are now stuck at bottom of 
hole. 
At the Fruin & Bambrick quarries, at Spring and Chouteau ave- 
nues, two tests were drilled that yielded a little gas at 470 and 560 
feet and considerable at 720 feet. A tank 30 feet in diameter was 
erected to store the gas and pumps were installed to remove the salt 
water which interfered with the gas. The west well is said to have 
produced 6000 cubic feet of gas per day and to show a pressure of 90 
pounds when shut in, but the corrosive action of the water on the 
pumps has made it difficult to maintain them. 
Both wells are now full of water, although the owners hope to 
recover them. The quarry face shows that these wells are on a small, 
gentle anticline that has a northwesterly trend and on which undoubt- 
edly occur the Tamm and Welle-Boettler wells. It also explains why 
the amount of gas and oil is so discouraging in the area drilled, which 
is about 2000 feet long by 500 feet wide. These wells inspired a prolific 
crop of fakers, who for trifling fees claimed to be able to locate “gas 
veins,” “oil lakes” or metallic ores by the use of divining rods, silk- 
covered canes and mysterious little boxes that “unerringly by scien- 
tific principles” would give the size, depth and richness of the underly- 
ing ‘“‘buried wealth.” 
The recent discovery of the rich oil fields of Eastern Illinois has 
again stimulated prospecting about St. Louis. Test wells have recently 
been drilled 1500 feet deep at Glencoe, about 1500 feet at Manchester 
and 1080 feet at Ranken, in the western part of St. Louis County. As 
they started at or about the outcrop of the Trenton limestone, it would 
have been very remarkable had they proved otherwise than “dusters” 
or barren, as the geological conditions below that horizon are not 
favorable. 
A shallow test was drilled in the outcrop of the Trenton limestone 
near Antonio, about twenty-two miles southwest of St. Louis, on the 
strength of the “oil-rock” or thin brown oily shale that occurs at the 
top of the Trenton. As splinters of this shale burn with a strong 
empyreumatic odor, it has misled many to believe that a paying oil 
pool occurs in the vicinity. As this thin oily shale caps the Trenton 
as far north as Wisconsin, and thus underlies a large part of the 
Mississippi Valley, it is liable in the future to deceive others by the 
