MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK 183 



North of Buffalo in the towns of Tonawanda and Amherst and in 

 the proximate portion of Niagara county are a number of small 

 wells, of which the most are grouped in the southeastern part of the 

 town of Tonawanda and in the vicinity of Getzville, town of 

 Amherst. 



Well on Mrs Eva Fries farm, Tonawanda. Well drilled in March 

 and April 1918 by North Buffalo Natural Gas Co. Gas with a 

 moderate flow was found at 561 feet in the Clinton formation. No 

 gas in the MeJina. 



Surface 



274 feet 



Niagara 



474 



Shale, soft gray 



549 



Clinton 



579 



Medina, red sandstone 



648 



Medina, gray sandstone 



682 



Shale 



685 



The largest district of Erie county in regard to area and number 

 of productive wells lies in the townships of Clarence, Newstead, 

 Lancaster, Alden, Marilla and Elma, east and northeast of Buffalo. 

 The proved territory embraces a surface of about 10 miles long east 

 and west and 8 miles wide; the same gas belt may be traced, how- 

 ever, beyond the limits of Erie county into the adjoining section of 

 Genesee county, so that the area is even larger than indicated by 

 these figures. The first wells in the district were put down some 

 25 years ago, but there was little activity in the exploration before 

 1900, when the possible importance of the field began to be realized. 

 There are no extraordinary pools within the area that compare in 

 pressure or yield with the records that have been reported from 

 some of the great natural gas districts of the country. The wells 

 mostly show a moderate flow, a few hundred thousand cubic feet a 

 day, perhaps, as the usual upper limit, but they have proved profit- 

 able by reason of their consistent nature and the favorable combina- 

 tion of conditions for exploiting and selling the output. There are 

 over 200 wells in the district. The gas comes from the lower third 

 of the Medina sandstone, which measures about no feet thick in 

 this part and is encountered at depths of 1000 to 1200 feet in most 

 wells, measured to the top of the first bed. A contour map of the 

 sandstone, based on well data and prepared by the geological staff 

 of the Dominion Natural Gas Co. shows that the strata are slightly 

 folded along a north-south axis across the dip. The most marked 

 fold is an anticline whose summit lies just west of a line drawn 

 between Mill Grove and Alden Center in the town of Alden. There 



