COLUMBIANA COUNTY. 117 



FT, 



8. Hard saudrook, containing a fissure from which gas issued with such 

 force as to throw the water twenty feet above the top of the pipe for 

 twenty-four hours, and was then exhausted 8 



■9. Hard sandroclj, with strong smell of oil, and first salt water 5 



10. Hard sandrock, with partings of shale, and strong gas v€in which threw 



water fifty feet high 56 



"There are seven wells in this vicinity, within an areaof four by seven miles, all yield- 

 ing some gas — two a small quantity of oil, from two to three gallons xier day. Five of 

 the wells produced salt water, but on!y two in snfficient quantity to justify the erection 

 of works. I had the superintendence of tlie well of P. F. Geisse & Co., at Wellsville, for 

 some months in 1862. We used gas for fuel, and produced about forty barrels of salt per 

 week. This well is now abandoned, having lost its gas but retained its salt water. I 

 have bored two wells to the depth of eight hundred to nine hundred feet, but found 

 nothing but sandstone and fire-clay (soapstone or clay shale) as far as I went. No salt, 

 gas, or oil -svas obtained below six hundred feet. The water varies from five to eight de- 

 grees of the salometer^abont five degrees in the Geisse well and in our well here. This 

 well produces about two barrels per day, requiring only .about four days' labor per 

 month. The salt is, however, of much less value than the gas, which we use for both 

 light and fuel in several houses beside the salt works, and have a large surplus going to 

 waste." 



All the wells referred to by Mr. Dickey were begun within one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet of the base of the Coal Measures, and penetrated deeply 

 into the Waverly. The two hundred and ten feet of shale specified in 

 the well register given by him doubtless represent the Cuj'ahoga shale, 

 while the sandstones below, which contain the gas and salt water, are 

 probably the equivalents of the Berea grit. We may also infer that the 

 oil and gas were derived from the black shales of the Waverly, as at 

 Mecca and Grafton. After these had been passed, barren ground was 

 entered, consisting of the lower Waverly shales, and, perhaps, the upper 

 Chemung. Probably if the boring had been carried deep enough to reach 

 the vicinity of the Huron shale, another gas and oil horizon would have 

 been reached— that of the Pennsylvania wells; but the supply from this 

 source would be small unless coarse sandrocks which could serve as reser- 

 voirs were found, or strata more or less disturbed. Within the last fifty 

 years an immense number of wells have been put down for oil or salt in 

 this portion of the valley of th-e Ohio, and the total absence of all indica- 

 tions of coal beyond one hundred and fifty feet below the level of the river 

 proves conclusively that the base of the Coal Measures is passed at about 

 that depth, and fully confirms the conclusions we have arrived at from 

 the study of the .strata which lie above drainage. We learn another 

 thing from these borings, viz., that Coal No. 1, which has so great value 

 along the northern margin of the basin, is in this region generally thin 

 or wanting, so that it can' not be counted upon with any certainty as an 

 element in the resources of this part of Columbiana county. As the Bar- 



