A SCIENCE. 
PETROLEUM IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA. 
BY S. F. PECKHAM, UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 
THE history of the development of petroleum in Southern 
California is very interesting. It first attracted attention 
just at the close of the war, when the energies of the country 
were again directed to the development of its material re- 
sources. The production of oil upon Oil Creek, Pennsy!- 
vania, had assumed such proportions as to stimulate effort 
in all directions for the opening up of every locality, not 
only in the United States, but in foreign countries where 
springs of petroleum or deposits of other forms of bitumen 
encouraged the possibility of repeating the experiences 
that had attended the drilling of wells along the tributaries 
of the Upper Alleghany. 
Among the persons who had promoted the enterprises 
that had borne such fruit on Oil Creek none had been 
more prominent than Professor Benjamin Silliman, Jr., 
and his contributions to the scientific press upon the oil 
springs of Pennsylvania soon became classical. - It is not 
surprising, therefore, that when he announced that a 
duplicate of the oil region of western Pennsylvania 
existed in the region south of Point Conception and the 
coast ranges his utterances were accepted as orac- 
ular and that commercial enterprises of unlimited di- 
mensions found the most cordial support from. capital 
on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. 
The insufficient examination given the subject and the 
shameful imposition practised upon Professor Silliman by 
those in whom he had a right to place confidence led to 
both extravagant expenditure and expectation along the 
whole line of development, so that the collapse of the 
vast organizations that during 1865-6 attempted to make 
real the prophecies that had been indulged respecting the 
possibilities of Ojai, Simi, etc., was more complete and 
disastrous than it ought to have been, and the reaction 
robbed the industry of the merit that justly was its due. 
While in California in 1865-6 I became convinced that 
‘nearly all the wells that were located and drilled during 
that period were drilled in barren rock, hence. their 
failure to produce oil was not surprising. The tunnels 
driven by Wheeler and Moss into the Sulphur Mountain 
and by others in the Newhall! District, around the Pico 
Cafion, demonstrated the fact that petroleum as well as 
maltha existed in the mountains of this region; but the 
difficulties of drilling and the small returns realized in any 
instance, as compared with other wells, particularly in 
Pennsylvania, led to the most disastrous and complete 
discouragement for many years. 
Added. to this was another class of facts acaroaly less 
discouraging. _ Repeated, and in many instances very 
costly, experiments fully established the fact that in Cali- 
fornia petroleum technologists had anew substance to deal. 
with from which commercial articles identical with those 
obtained from Pennsylvania oils could not be made. ‘The 
illuminating oils were small in quantity, but they were 
beautiful in appearance, and were only found. to be 
different from Pennsylvania oils when they were burned; 
the differences having always from that time to this pre- 
sented a difficulty in the way of commercial success that 
is fundamental. In the early days of refining, when it was 
taken for granted that petroleum was petroleum, wherever 
found, the petroleum obtained in Southern California, for 
the most part from tunnels, was attempted to be refined by 
simple distillation and treatment, as was at the time the 
custom in Pennsylvania. At this period (1865-6) the 
technology of Pennsylvania petroleum was extremely 
simple. Naphtha was a drug in the market and was 
forced into the burning oil or was burned under the stills, 
while, with stills being for the most part run to coke, the 
lubricating oils were dark in color, rank in odor and 
’ drilled wet, as it is tmpossible to case off the water. 
Vol. XXIII. No. 575 
generally in ill-repute. When the attempt was made to 
treat California oils in the same manner, it was found 
that there was but little naphtha, not much more burn- 
ing oil, a large proportion of an oil that was neither burn- 
ing oil nor lubricaiing oil, and a small amount of oil 
dense enough and with body enough for lubrication. 
Wheeler came back from San Francisco, where a trial . 
run had been made, and, in language more graphic than 
polite, declared that the stuff was ‘‘all d—d middlings.” 
Soon after Professor Silliman took a barrel of Ojai tar 
(maltha) to Boston and treated it in the experimental still. 
used at the Downer Kerosene Oil Company’s works. He 
produced acertain percentage of illuminating oil. At 
about the same time I succeeded by distilling the petro- 
leums from the Canada Lagaand Pico springs and from 
the tunnels in Wheeler’s Cafion and also a specimen of 
maltha from the same pool on the Ojai from which Pro- 
fessor Silliman’s barrel came, in increasing the yield of 
illuminating oil to a very respectable percentage. But 
while the illuminating oil thus produced was colorless and 
brilliant, it was peculiar, and could never be sold, so far as 
I have been informed, on its own merits in competition 
with illuminating oils made from Atlantic coast petroleums. 
In this condition the matter rested for many years. A 
few barrels of oil-were produced each year. Some of it 
was treated, but most of it, sofar as I can learn, was sold 
crude for fuel. 
About 1880 a new era dawned. Several gentlemen who 
had had large experience as oil producers in Pennsylvania, 
after a thorough study of the stratigraphy of the Sulphur 
Mountain and the ranges bordering the Santa Clara Valley, 
located a number of wells on the Ojai ranche and in the 
Sespé and other cafions that greatly exceeded in pro- 
ductiveness any wells formerly drilledinthisregion. The 
location of these wells was made on an entirely different 
principle from that which determined the location of wells 
in 1865. With few exceptions the outcrops of bitumen 
throughout this region are on hillsides into which the 
strata dip ata high angle. At the foot of these hills the 
maltha and asphaltum have often accumulated in exten- 
sive beds that with the accompanying rubbish some- 
times amount to even thousands of tons. 
The figure illustrates the situation. A careful study of 
the section shows conclusively that the well of 1865 might 
be drilled to any depth without reaching oil, while the 
location of 1880 presents only mechanical obstacles to 
the ultimate penetration of the oil-bearing strata. The 
problems of well-boring in this region present many diffi- 
culties. The formation is in the middle tertiary. The 
rocks are soft and friable and are tilted at very high angles. 
The wells in western Pennsylvania, after the surface 
water is cased off at about 300-400 feet, may be drilled to 
great depths as dry holes. InSouthern California, on the 
contrary, the well must be cased to the bottom, and 
The 
well is first started about 12 inches in diameter and the 
casing driven until it can be forced no further; a second 
size that will just run inside the first is then inserted and 
driven like the first until the pressure of the yielding mass 
of earth and rock holds it too firmly to admit of its being 
driven further; when a third size is inserted, and so on 
until asize too small toadmit of further drilling is reached. 
I think few wells 2000 feet deep have been drilled by 
this method in this region. It is obvious that the difh- 
culties of locating and drilling wells here are very great 
and that in many instances a well may fail of yielding oil 
within a few feet of a valuable deposit. 
It is but just to myself to say that I advised the super- 
intendent of the California Petrolenm Company, operating 
upon the Ojai ranche in 1865-6, to locate wells at the ~ 
east end of the ranche, in precisely the location since de- 
