Oil and gas resources of West Virginia. — White. 303 
About eight years ago your speaker took up the serious study 
of oil aud gas problems in Pennsylvania. The following year I 
became convinced that the great oil belt of that state would ex- 
tend into and across our own. Acting on this conviction I had a 
map prepared almost exactly like the one you see here now. This 
•I submitted to a Pittsburg firm and the theory of a southern ex- 
tension of the Pennsylvania field appeared so plausible to them 
that they were induced to undertake the oil development of Wesi 
Virginia on a large scale. 
Under my direction over four hundred thousand acres of West 
Virginia lands were leased by my brother, H. S. White, who now 
does business for the United States. The Pittsburg syndicate 
drilled two wells on this immense area, and erected about eight 
derricks. The first was drilled for gas with which to supply 
Wheeling. Some gas was found, but not as much as the company 
expected. The second well was for oil, and located near Board 
Tree Tunnel at the southwest corner of Pennsylvania. This 
found only a small quantity of the golden fluid. The syndicate 
was discouraged. Its president declared there was neither oil nor 
gas in West Virginia, and bankruptcy would be the result of any 
further effort to find them. The "shut down" movement came 
on and a property which would have made Eockafellers of its 
owners was permitted to lapse and the leases to become void. 
Within sight of the Board Tree venture a valuable oil well was 
completed by the Standard Oil company during the past year. 
One of my locations, made in 1885, before Mr. Hukill had 
drilled his first well at Mt. Morris, was one on the Youst farm 
near Fairview, in Marion county. Here a derrick had been 
erected, and I plead with the Pittsburg men to make this test be- 
fore finally abandoning West Virginia. They were deaf to my 
appeal, and this old derrick to-day stands in the midst of a dozen 
oil wells, gushing from one to five hundred barrels each, and send- 
ing two thousand barrels of the finest oil in the world throbbing 
through the pipe line on its way to the sea. The Mt. .Morris, 
Doll's Bun, Fairview, Mannington, oil and gas field, whose south- 
ern end no one has yet found, and which in my opinion will prove 
the largest and richest oil and gas licit the world has ever known, 
was largely covered by the leases which the Pittsburg syndicate 
held. 
Until the year 1889, the oil magnates of the country paid no 
