SJ THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA 



Itr's words, however, it still remains advisable to supplement the 

 data from the ordinary logs with facts secured in other ways. In 

 actual practice, three distinct methods may often be used for this 

 purpose. These are, first, measurements across the outcrops; sec- 

 ond, study of sample taken from the bailer during the drilling opera- 

 tion; third, search for the exceptional driller who makes accurate 

 discriminations of the kinds of rocks in which he is drilling. 



In spite of the fact that in eastern Kansas a stratum one 

 thousand feet deep outcrops twenty or thirty miles away, experi- 

 ence demonstrates that studies of the outcrops are worth making. 

 Study of cuttings, when they can be secured, is of such obvious im- 

 portance that it need not be insisted upon here. The admirable 

 investigations by Dr. Udden and others have made this sort of work 

 well known. Careful study even of an occasional well record from 

 the cuttings gives to subsurface work a degree of certainty and 

 . accuracy that is possible in no other way. The recent success of 

 diamond drilling for oil in Mexico gives ground to hope that in the 

 future even better samples may occasionally be available for study. 



The last method mentioned above, that of hunting for the 

 exceptional driller, is in some cases much the easiest to apply, and 

 often not inferior to the other methods in the value of its results. 

 In most of the districts in which drilling has been carried on for 

 a few years there can be found at least one man who is an artist in 

 the making of logs. He is commonly a geologist who was denied 

 the privilege of a geological education in his youth. With an in- 

 terest in rocks, and an interest in setting down the facts as he finds 

 them, he will furnish records that are sometimes not much worse 

 than would be kept by a professional geologist. Such a man is 

 likely to keep records of all the wells upon which he works, and to 

 take an interest in showing them to anybody who appreciates them. 

 He may be so extremely valuable to the geologist who wishes to be- 

 come familiar with the underground conditions in an oil field that 

 it seems surprising that he is so seldom searched for and so 

 seldom recognized. 



In order to show how these principles may be applied, and the 

 sort of results that may be reached, let me give a summary of their 

 application to the district within twenty miles of Independence, 

 Kansas. The conditions in this area are very similar to those in 

 much of Osage, Washington, and Nowata counties, Oklahoma. Like 

 most areas, this one makes it necessary to use all the devices one can 

 muster before it yields its geological secrets. It gave also the op- 

 portunity to use all the methods enumerated above and a good many 

 others in supplementing the ordinary logs. 



