E. T. BUMBLE — SOME TEXAS OIL HORIZONS. 
89 
the water, and has flowed continuously since. While the amount is 
small, on account of the extremely narrow aperture through which it 
can rise, the flow is several gallons per day. 
Having this evidence of the existence of oil, certain enterprising citi- 
zens took the matter up, and the Corsicana Oil Development Company 
was formed. Another well was put down in the neighborhood of the 
city well mentioned above, and again the oil was found. The bore of the 
well was small and the flow was not very strong. Taking the line of 
strike of the formation, which is here nearly northeast-southwest, the 
company drilled other wells and found oil in all of them. There are, 
at the time of this writing, six wells producing oil steadily, and two or 
three others are being drilled. 
The depth is approximately the same in all of the wells — 1040 to 
1050 feet; but the oil sand is thicker toward the northeast, being 15 feet 
thick in well Ho. 7 of the Development Company. Other wells will be 
sunk east of the line which has proved so productive, with the expecta- 
tion of extending the field in that direction. 
As has been stated, the geological horizon is that of the Ponderosa 
marls. These beds have a thickness at this point of 1650 feet, as has 
been proved by several wells that have penetrated them. They are of 
their usual blue marl or clay character, and the sand bed in which the 
oil is found is somewhat of an anomaly in this region, although further 
west such beds are more common. 
The wells flow by spurts, and are connected by a pipe line. A pump- 
ing station is being erected at the northeast well, which is at the lowest 
level of the series. 
I was unable to make any estimate of the flow of the wells in the 
short time of my stay, but I was informed that several hundred barrels 
had been shipped, in addition to the amount used by different industries 
in the town. At present the oil is principally used for fuel purposes, 
for which it is excellently adapted, as is shown by the good results at the 
flour mill at Corsicana and other places where it has had trial. It is 
also used by several gas companies in the State for the manufacture 
of gas. 
I consider it entirely probable that this field, now very circumscribed 
in area, will be found to be a broad stretch of territory, or a series of 
belts paralleling the strike of this formation eastward of the present line 
of wells. 
Geologically these oil deposits are connected with the gas, sulphur, 
salt, etc., already mentioned, and the connection was, in part, indicated 
by the writer in his description of the Saline of Anderson county in the 
Second Annual Report of the Geological Survey, where it is stated: 
“The conditions surrounding these salines are very nearly the same in 
