NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 



PROCEEDINGS 



MEETINGS OF THE SOCIETY : 



March 7, 1902.— President Graham Bell in the 

 chair. The proceedings of the last meeting 

 were read by Secretary Henry and approved. 



"The Petroleum Resources of the United 

 States " was the subject of an address by Dr. 

 C. Willard Hayes and of the discussion follow- 

 ing. Dr. Hayes briefly explained the compo- 

 sition of the hydrocarbons and outlined the 

 several theories of the formation of petroleum — 

 the organic theory, the inorganic hypothesis, 

 and the theory that petroleum is formed by 

 inorganic substances acting on organic sub- 

 stances. Petroleum in Pennsylvania is found 

 in sandstone which looks so massive that at 

 first sight it would seem to be solid ; in Ohio 

 it is found in the Trenton dolomites, and in 

 Texas in porous and vesicular rocks. The age 

 of the formations containing petroleum varies 

 from Silurian in Ohio and Carboniferous in 

 Pennsylvania to Neocene in California 



There are no surface indications to indicate 

 where petroleum exists. Certain characteris- 

 tics of rocks, however, must be present. The 

 Tocks must be porous, they must have good 

 cover (z. e., must be overlain by an impervi- 

 ous stratum), and they must be flexed. The 

 geologist can tell with certainty where oil will 

 not be found ; he can also tell where it may be 

 found, but he cannot tell definitely where it 

 will be found. 



Dr. Hayes called attention to the peculiarity 

 of the land at Beaumont, Texas. All wells 

 drilled in the top of a sharp dome yield oil, but 

 any holes drilled in the side of the dome yield 

 no oil. As an instance of the great pressure of 

 the oil at Beaumont, Dr. Haj'es cited one well 

 where, at a depth of 1,700 feet, the pressure 

 was from 700 to 800 pounds to the square inch. 

 He also called attention to the widespread use 

 nf oil as a fuel in some manufactories in the 

 South, where it was found that one man could 

 do the work of nearly fifty in the furnace- 

 rooms. 



The output of petroleum has more than 

 doubled for the United States in the last 20 

 years. In 1S80 the output was 26,286,123 bar- 

 rels, and in 1900 it reached the enormous total 

 of 63,362,704 barrels. Considerably more than 

 half of the petroleum produced comes from the 

 Appalachian field and about one-third from 

 Ohio and Indiana. 



Dr. Hayes said he wished especially to em- 

 phasize the fact that the supply of oil was not 

 inexhaustible, but limited, and that unless the 

 great waste at present was checked there would 

 bt an exhaustion of petroleum at no distant 



day. When gas was discovered the suppty was 

 thought to be unlimited, but already the nat- 

 ural-gas fields of the country have been prac- 

 tically exhausted. At least 1,000,000 barrels 

 of oil have been wasted in one year at Beau- 

 mont. Such wasteful extravagance ought to 

 be corrected if the oil is to last. 



At the conclusion of Dr. Hayes' very inter- 

 esting address President Bell called for remarks. 



Pi of. A.J. Henry mentioned the practice, 

 common in certain parts of Ohio, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and New York, of pumping abandoned 

 wells at intervals, which is a quite profitable 

 business when the price of oil is high. He 

 also directed attention to the fact that presence 

 of gas does not indicate that oil is to be found 

 in the vicinity. 



Mr. R. U. Goode inquired as to the relative 

 price and value of oil found in the different 

 fields. 



Dr. Hayes remarked that the price depended 

 upon what you could get for it. Beaumont 

 oil sells for from 10 to 25 cents a barrel on the 

 field; Pennsylvania is worth go cents a barrel, 

 California 65 cents a barrel, and Texas 50 cents 

 a barrel, or 75 cents if coal in the neighbor- 

 hood is selling for $2.50 a ton. 



Vice-President McGee called attention to 

 the fact that young formations are richer and 

 old formations poorer in hydrocarbons, in- 

 stancing marsh gas as an illustration of con- 

 temporary origin of the substances. Dr. McGee 

 also stated that-the dome structure noted in 

 Texas and elsewhere is not found in Califor- 

 nia, and inquired what was the mode of the 

 accumulation of the oil in California. 



Dr. Hayes, replying to the question as to 

 whether any oil had been discovered in the 

 West Indies or the Philippines, said that small 

 quantities of a very pure oil had been found 

 in Santa Clara, Cuba The peculiar fact of 

 this oil was that it was associated with rock of 

 igneous origin. So far as he was aware, there 

 was no further developed field elsewhere in 

 the West Indies. There was said to be some 

 oil in the Philippines. The Appalachian oil 

 field is the largest in the world, in extent 

 greatly exceeding the Russian fields at Baku. 



Dr. David P. Barrows mentioned the fact 

 that in the Far East oil from Sumatra is ex- 

 tensively used, and there was also oil in Java. 



Prof. C. C. Georgeson inquired as to the 

 process of refining petroleum. 



Dr. Hayes replied that he had not inves- 

 tigated the refining process sufficiently to 

 consider himself competent to speak on that 

 subject. 



Mr. G. K. Gilbert believed that the speaker 

 had given undue weight to the inorganic theory 



