ANDERSON COUNTY. 317 



At the sulphur mine in Calcasieu Parish the boring of a well twelve hun- 

 dred and thirty feet deep showed oil for the first three hundred and eighty- 

 three feet. 



"The evidence of oil consists in a number of black banks of hardened 

 bitumen on the northern border of the marsh prairie and on its surface ; also 

 quite a number of bubbling springs, emitting an inflammable gas; and crude 

 petroleum may be found by walking over the marsh. So abundant is this 

 natural discharge of crude oil that the log haulers for miles around obtain 

 their only supply of lubricating material from these springs. And yet the 

 boring made in one of the most promising spots, to obtain a more abundant 

 flow of oil, was almost entirely unsuccessful. The oil was at one stage of the 

 boring, obtained in considerable quantity, but was soon exhausted. The well 

 was continued still further down into the bowels of the earth, and instead of 

 more oil the marvelous deposit of sulphur now so well known throughout the 

 State was discovered."* The sulphur is of unequaled thickness and purity, 

 and the gypsum, which is over five hundred feet thick, is also pure. 



The existence of similar areas and conditions in East Texas, and the discov- 

 ery of rock salt underlying Grand Saline, in a deposit nearly a mile in length, 

 and over two hundred feet thick, are ample encouragement for the expendi- 

 ture of the money necessary to sink trial wells in every such locality known 

 in the State. 



* Second Annual Report Louisiana State Geological Survey, F. V. Hopkins, M. D., p. 39. 



