TITLES AND ABSTRACTS OF PAPERS 105 



pegmatite dikes striking northwest and southeast. They range from 6 inches 

 up to 40 feet in width and occur in what is locally called "Ashland mica 

 schist." The chief minerals are quartz, orthoclase, muscovite, biotite, iron 

 tourmaline, and beryl. The dikes are weathered to kaolinite to a depth of 60 

 to 90 feet from the surface. The quartz crystals are very large, sometimes 

 weighing several hundred pounds, as is also true of the micas, which are found 

 up to 300 pounds. On the other hand, the feldspars are, seldom over a few 

 inches in diameter. The tourmalines are commonly of all dimensions up to 

 10 by 6 inches in diameter, and the beryls are found up to 5 by 3 inches in 

 diameter. At a depth of about 70 feet in the weathered dike a large crystal 

 of iron tourmaline was found. The top of this crystal is now in the Museum 

 of the Case School of Applied Science. The specimen is now 7 inches high 

 and 10 inches in diameter and weighs 43% pounds. Since it was originally 

 3 to SV2 feet long, it must have weighed from 225 to 250 pounds and therefore 

 must have been one of the largest tourmalines ever found. The faces are 

 rough and vertically striated, but the three planes of to P (1010) and the 6 

 of 00 P 2 (1120) are easily distinguishable. It is terminated by R (1010), 

 which is therefore the blunter end or antilogue pole. 



Presented in fiill extemporaneously. 



CAU8E OF THE ABSENCE OF WATER IN DRY SANDSTONE BEDS 

 BY EOSWELL H. JOHNSON^ 



{Ahstract) 



"Dry sands" — that is, sandstone beds without water — are to be explained on 

 the supposition that the accumulation of gas within the sand has displaced 

 water, which it originally held. Opposed to this view are Gardner, who writes, 

 and Reeves, who urges, that "the sediments and their porous areas were filled 

 with air, which later prevented water from penetrating them during sub- 

 mergence beneath the sea." 



These views are held much more naively by many operators who talk of a 

 "good sand," although it contains no gas, oil, or water and is in a region that 

 is undrained, failing to realize the physical impossibility of such a condition, 

 in view of the well known, world-wide increase of pressure with depth. Even 

 in the rare cases when the gas is largely nitrogen we have high pressure also. 

 No sand should be called good that is not porous, and if porous and not ex- 

 hausted it must contain gas, oil, or water. 



The proof that the "dryness" is caused by gas displacement of the connate 

 water lies in the chemistry of the gas. Only in the very rare cases where this 

 is mainly nitrogen is the Gardner or Reeves position tenable. What little 

 nitrogen there is is probably entrapped air from which the oxygen has been 

 removed by oxidizing compounds, the CO in the turn forming carbonates. 



The Appalachian field which Reeves uses for evidence carries very little 

 nitrogen, nor are the gases richest in nitrogen from red beds, but from sands 

 in Kansas several hundred feet below the red beds. 



Read by title in the absence of the author. 



1 Introduced by Charles P. Berkey. 



