NATURAL GAS: ITS PRODUCTION, SERVICE, AND 
CONSERVATION. 
By Samuel S. Wyer. 
Of Columbus, Ohio. 
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION. 
HOW NATURAL GAS IS MINED AND SERVED TO THE CONSUMER. 
The first step is the securing of the lease or right to prospect for, 
reduce to possession, remove and market natural gas. This lease must 
usually be secured, held, and paid for, for a number of years — on the 
optimistic but unproven faith that it may contain gas — prior to 
beginning actual development work. 
The unknown underground supplies of natural gas are found and 
reduced to possession by drilling down from the earth’s surface. 
To protect the hole, an iron pipe — called a “casing” — is driven 
down into the rock formation always found above the gas-bearing 
sand rock. A plugging device known as a “ packer ” is fastened in 
the casing or hole in the rock, immediately above the gas formation, 
and the gas by virtue of its inherent expansive tendency then comes 
to the surface — usually about one-half mile above — through tubing, as 
shown on page 8, and forces itself into the transmission lines, when 
it then may continue by its own expansive force to travel on toward 
the consumer. 
As the gas travels the pressure must drop, for the reasons given on 
page 10, and this necessitates the installation of gas compressors, 
whose function is to recompress the gas, increasing thereby its pres- 
sure, so that it will continue to travel through the transmission lines. 
From the compressing station the gas then goes to the consumer. 
When the gas reaches the distributing plant it passes into the medium 
pressure lines in the city and the pressure is then in turn reduced to 
the low-pressure lines, where it travels through the mains at probably 
5-ounce pressure to the square inch — this, of course, constantly de- 
creasing as the consumer’s fixtures are approached — through the 
service cock, service line, consumer’s meter, consumer’s piping, and 
ultimately is burned at the consumer’s fixtures. 
These steps present an unbroken chain of service features, from the 
reserve acreage in the field — that must be carried and paid for in 
order to permit of future drilling operations, and, therefore, future 
service — to the consumer’s fixtures, with this additional feature, that 
when the gas passes the consumer’s meter it is reduced to possession 
