92 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Bonaventure conglomerates 

 Over the tops of the broken and decapitated folds of sand, limestone 

 and conglomerate in Gaspe county lies a mantle of coarse clastic material 

 partly sand but chiefly jasper and limestone conglomerates. These strata 

 do not appear north of Gaspe bay and are chiefly confined to the moun- 

 tains about Perce and to Bonaventure island. Sandstones and conglom- 

 erates together may attain an elevation of 1500 feet represented by the 

 Perce mountain and they have a gentle and apparently uniform dip to the 

 north, not often exceeding 10° and generally less. These constitute the 

 Bonaventure formation of Logan and were regarded by him as of early Car- 

 bonic age. 



English company stripped off great patches all along the hillsides from Little Gaspe to 

 Grande Greve in a mad and misdirected search for the short cut to wealth. 



Had nature been less wise Gaspe might have been a great oil field, with today its 

 distant reaches dotted with derricks and a row of palaces extending back from Gaspe 

 Basin to the Mississippi. "^ 



If the hopes of fifty years were realized and oleaginous money had been pumped out 

 of the earth, Gaspe would ere' this have lost its bloom and be like any other place, its peo- 

 ple like any other people. The story of the hunt for petroleum in this region is I believe 

 that of the most tenacious and costly pursuit of an ignis fatuus known in the history of 

 oil development. Indeed for half a century the golden goal has seemed ever at hand and 

 today never so far away. Oil was found by the early geologists and known before 

 their coming, oozing from the sandstones on the south shore of Gaspe Bay particu- 

 larly near Tar Point and Point St Peter, where one of the anticlines emerges at the 

 water's edge. 



In 1863 Logan published his final geological report on this country and this was fol- 

 lowed by a special report on the petroleum by Hunt in 1865. This M'as near the period of 

 rapid development of the petroleum production in Pennsylvania and though the anticlinal 

 theory of oil accumulation had not been formulated so early, yet private enterprise began 

 the drilling for oil along the inland extension of these anticlines into the region about the 

 upper reaches of the York river. It is not my purpose to enter into detail in regard to the 

 persistent effort to obtain this product during this long period. Companies were organ- 

 ized on British capital and companies were syndicated ; new companies representing other 

 capital appeared and were syndicated. The map we have here inserted indicates the num- 

 ber of wells that have been driven, some 35 in number, some of them to the great depth 

 of over 3000 feet. It shows also the location of the refineries, and may convey some con- 

 ception of the enormous expense involved, for all apparatus for drilling and refining has 

 had to be brought in by water from the States and hauled over rough roads through the 

 wilderness for 20 to 30 miles. Vast sums doubtless have been spent and all the labor and 

 all the expense ever in the hope of finding oil. The refineries were built to refine the oil 

 it was hoped to find, not oil that had been found, and new wells were sunk not to find 



I A little stream about 35 miles back from the Basin where the oil operations have been most 

 actively carried on. 



