422 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



CHAPTER 3 



PRODUCTION OF GAS FROM THE LOWER FORMATIONS 



OF THE STATE 



MEDINA, UTICA, TRENTON, POTSDAM 



The discovery of petroleum on a large scale in this country 

 was made at Titusville, Pa. in 1859. During the next few 

 years explorations were eagerly carried forward and the geology 

 of petroleum began forthwith to take shape. It was isoon estab- 

 lished that the great reservoir rocks of this region were sand- 

 stones or conglomerates that belonged to the Devonian age. The 

 prompt but premature conclusion was at once reached by many 

 of those interested in the subject that the natural home of petro- 

 leum was in the upper Devonian rocks of the geologic scale. 

 But other horizons were developed as explorations proceeded and 

 it was found necessary to include Subcarboniferous and finally 

 Coal Measure sandstones among the sources of oil production 

 and also to go lower in the scale and take in the middle Devonian 

 as well. 



With the geologic range as thus defined, namely from the 

 middle Devonian through the Coal Measures, the drillers of west- 

 ern Pennsylvania and adjacent regions in New York, Ohio and 

 West Virginia were content. Not an oil well was known outside 

 of these limits and it came to be everywhere recognized as en- 

 tirely practicable to determine on such a basis the regions in 

 which the search for petroleum could be undertaken with fair- 

 prospects for success as well as the regions into which it would 

 be folly to introduce the drill. This limit was practically in one 

 direction only, namely, in descending the geologic column, for 

 in eastern North America the Coal Measures are the latest 

 formed and so the highest strata of the scale, with a few insignifi- 

 cant exceptions. But when Silurian or older rocks constitute the 

 surface such territory was at once condemned, on the basis of 

 the generalization above described. 



The overthrow of this premature generalization came from 

 northwestern Ohio in 1884-85 by the discovery of gas and oil in 

 large amounts in the Trenton limestone. An immediate exten- 

 sion of the possible range of these substances was effected by this 



