QUESTION OF SALT WATER 271 



evidence of only a single well, which many of the most practical oil 

 experts regarded as a "freak/' entirely out of the regular conditions to 

 be found in most of the Mexican oil pools. Mr. H. G. Wylie and Doctor 

 Paddleford, who saw the well soon after it took fire and while all the 

 oil it was producing was being consumed high up the air so completely 

 that not a drop returned to the earth, say that the Dos Bocas well was a 

 great gas well, rather than a great oil well, and that in their opinion the 

 well never put out more than 15,000 to 20,000 barrels of oil daily before 

 access of water ended its spectacular career, both as an oil well and as 

 a gas well. The opinions of such well qualified experts as those of the 

 general manager and general superintendent of all the properties of the 

 Mexican Petroleum Company, Limited, are certainly entitled to great 

 weight. Then, too, the situation of the Dos Bocas well, not far from 

 the shore of a vast body of water— -Lake Tamiahua — where fissures, faults, 

 and dikes give abundant opportunity for surface waters to descend into 

 the earth in great volume, as attested by the continued enormous flow 

 of hot (160° Fahrenheit, according to Dr. C. W. Hayes, general man- 

 ager of the Pierson interests, and even above 212°, according to other 

 testimony) salt water continually ascending from the crater-like mouth 

 of the well in question, along with much gas and petroleum cooked into 

 balls of asphaltum, is the most favorable location possible for such an 

 unique exhibition as Dos Bocas has given. The conditions surrounding 

 it and the gushers at Casiano are entirely different, since Casiaho is sev- 

 eral miles removed from any large body of water, and as No. 7 well 

 there has already put into tankage 19,000,000 barrels of oil without any 

 signs of water or diminution in either original rock pressure (585 

 pounds), or flow of both oil and gas, there does not appear to be any 

 valid reason for the apprehension expressed by some that the Casiano 

 pool may "go to hot water suddenly, just like Dos Bocas" ; in fact, the 

 methods of sinking and protecting the wells against invasion of water 

 from above or laterally through fissures and fractures of the inclosing 

 walls of the borings would seem to give assured security against such 

 disastrous results. This method of drilling consists of forcing cemenl 

 down the outside of each string of casing immediately after il is se1 and 

 continuing the filling until the fractures will take up do more, (bus 

 giving a solid wall of reinforced concrete from the top to the bottom of 

 the last string of casing, which is to be set in the solid cap rock o\' the 

 Tamasopa limestone. Then, just before entering the "pay." generally 

 found at about 30 feet under the top of the capping limestone, the hole 

 is to be filled with cemenl up above the bottom of the last siring o\' casing 

 and left undisturbed for several days, until it hardens and completely 

 closes any remaining fissures thai might possibly give trouble, before the 

 drill is finally sen! through the cemenl and (he Pew remaining feel o\' 



