220 The American Geologist. ^p"'- i^^s. 
drilled new wells, and in other ways prepared to profit by the 
discovery which the enterprise of a few citizens had made pos- 
sible. The next thing was to find a market for the new fuel, 
and "the strange folly that seems bound up in a municipal cor- 
poration when it obtains a good supply of gas, that it must find 
some one who can use the fuel up in the largest way and most 
rapidly to whom to give it, without money and without price 
broke out also in Lancaster. An ill-omened arch bearing the 
illumined inscription 'Eree gas to manufacturers' spans the 
main street of the town at the railroad crossing."* The efforts 
of the city to secure factories through the offer of free gas 
were not successful as they had been in northwestern Ohio,- 
and consequently Lancaster did not experience the boom that 
Findlay and adjacent places enjoyed. The results, however, 
were good, the city being better in every material way than 
before the discovery. 
Newark was another of the towns stimulated by the work 
at Findlay. , The first well, drilled probably in 1885, did not 
reach the Lancaster gas rock, but in October of the follov/ing 
year another well was begun which after considerable delay 
reached the gas rock, the depth being 2385 feet. A small flow 
only of gas was found, but it was sufficient to secure further 
exploration. Accordingly the third well was soon completed 
but with similar results. Other wells followed in quick suc- 
cession, and by 1889 the supply was regarded sufficient to 
warrant piping the town. The wells, however, were small, 
the best producing only about 1,000,000 cubic feet per day, 
and in the winter of 1889-90 the supply was not adequate to 
meet the demands.! An eff'ort was made to meet the difficnHy 
by drilling new wells, but this was only partially successful. 
The Newark reservoir cannot be regarded as having contrib- 
uted notably to the fuel supply of the state. 
In the spring of 1888 a well was drilled at the village of 
Thurston, which lies between Lancaster and Newark, the re- 
sult being a small producer of gas. The second well located 
one mile farther east, had an initial production of 7,000,000 
cubic feet in twenty-four hours and a rock pressure of 700 
pounds to the square inch. This started the excitement, and 
• Ibid, p. 236. 
t Vol. vi, pp. 370-1; also First Ann. Rep. (1890), pp. 237-24-0. 
