122 EZBQUIEL ORDOÑBZ 



Government as regards the outlook of the Mexican Gulf 

 Coast as a future oil producer. 



When Mr. E. L. Doheny, of Los Angeles, Cal. and I locat- 

 ed the first producing well of México, I was also the first 

 to predict, the great future of the oil industry in México, 

 just at the time when the Government and some Mexican 

 geologists felt rather pesimistic. The Mexican investors and 

 the general public by the effect of these discouragements 

 did not pay attention to this important source of common 

 wealth until recent days, and so suddenly, that we are 

 menaced by the consequences brought about by a great 

 boom. 



It was quite impossible about five years ago, to find 

 serious Mexican capitalists to invest money in oil lands. So 

 the large few ^oreign companies operating since the beggin- 

 ing, easily secured large holdings in spite of the trouble 

 frequently resultant from faulty titles or ownership. 



The main object of this short paper is the expounding 

 of. the fact that the connection between oil and small vol- 

 canic apparatus is exclusively mechanical, having nothing 

 to do of course with the origin of the oil, which is hypothet- 

 ically considered by us of puré organic derivation. Our oil 

 is not indigenous of the rocks in which are the porous seams 

 where it is accumulated. 



As it is well known, the Mexican oil lands are made up 

 of a thick shale uniform strata intercalated in places — 

 especially near the oil seams — with a kind of sandy shale 

 and hard flinty thin beds of the same material. These four 

 or five thousand feet of shale overlies probably a thick 

 cretaceous formation of limestone and other sedimentary 

 rocks intercalated, in which probably the oil originates. 



While it is suppossed in Mr. Von Hofer's article referred 

 to (in quoting the views of a Mexican geologist), that the 

 oil country is a highly disturbe one, I think it is the con- 

 trary. That section of the East coast of México does not 



