SOUTHERN PACIFIC LINES 29 
barrels, but finally the amount diminished, and the yield in 1930 
was only 527,834 barrels. It is estimated that in all about 40,600,300 
barrels has been produced from an area of about 300 acres, which is 
a larger production than that of any other field in Louisiana. Some 
of the borings found considerable gas. Salt was reached at a depth 
of 3,716 feet, but most of the oil was obtained at 1,700 to 2,000 
For several years the oil from this field sustained a refinery 
at Jennings. 
Southwest of Jennings, between the railroad and the Gulf of 
Mexico, are noted hunting and fishing grounds with a great variety 
of fish and wild fowl. 
A short distance beyond Jennings, just before crossing Bayou 
Chene, the railroad turns due west, a course which is continued 50 
miles to Edgerly, over prairies with an average eleva- 
tion of 20 feet. While many parts of the region are 
under cultivation for rice, other crops are raised, in- 
There are many cattle 
Welsh. 
Elevation 23 feet. 
SN appatligs 197 miles. cluding considerable cotton. 
in the numerous pastures. 
Three miles west of Welsh there is another low local dome, known 
as the Welsh oil field, the derricks of which are mostly about a mile 
north of the railroad. About 90 wells have been drilled here, and 
some of them yielded a small production for a few years. Much of 
the oil was used for lubrication on the locomotives of the Southern 
Pacific lines. (Turn to sheet 4.) 
Just beyond Welsh the railroad crosses the east branch of Bayou 
Lacassine, the water of which is used to some extent for rice irriga- 
tion; the west branch of this stream is crossed just east of Lacassine 
siding. A short distance west of that siding there is a small clump 
of pines south of the railroad, a sporadic outlier of the great pine 
forest that covers a large part of western Louisiana and eastern 
Texas. Not far beyond this place the Missouri Pacific Railroad 
is crossed. 
In this region ‘‘pimple mounds” appear in the prairies, and they 
become more numerous toward Lake Charles and beyond, though 
somewhat scattered. Most of them are less than 3 feet high and 
approximately circular. A few of the larger well-formed mounds are 
very conspicuous and reach 75 to 100 feet in diameter. Many of 
them have been more or less obliterated by cultivation, and some 
have been cut by drainage ditches and road grading. 
They occur 
19 The subsurface geology (see table, 
p. 19) showed clay (Beaumont) to 90 
feet; sand (Lissie and Citronelle), 90 
to 1,100 feet; clay, mainly Pascagoula 
an 1,100 to 2,800 
to an unknown depth. Probably Jack- 
son strata were penetrated in the 
deeper holes, several of which were 
from 7,294 to 7,447 feet deep. One 
dry hole 8,903 feet deep was aban- 
doned in hard blue shale regarded by 
some geologists as Oligocene. 
