THE LOS ANGELES OIL DISTRICT, SOUTHERN 
CALIFORNIA. 
By Ralph Arnold. 
INTRODUCTION. 
* 
During the summer of 1902 Mr. George H. Eldridge spent about two 
weeks in the vicinity of Los Angeles collecting data concerning the 
geology and oil production of the region, but owing to poor health for 
a long time previous to his death in 1905 he had done little toward 
working this information into a report. Since Mr. Eldridge’s visit the 
city field has been considerably modified by the abandonment of many 
wells and the present state of development of the Salt Lake field has 
been brought about. It has therefore been necessary to make a new 
and more detailed examination of the same region in order to prepare a 
suitable report. 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. 
jm 
% 
The writer wishes to fully acknowledge the value of Mr. Eldridge’s 
notes, which have been freely used and which have contributed largely 
to whatever of value there may be in the following pages. Acknowl¬ 
edgments are due also to the various oil companies and their man¬ 
agers, as well as to individual drillers in the district, for assistance in 
various ways and for information given by them during the course of 
the work. Thanks are due more particularly to Mr. E. J. Eginton, 
superintendent of the Clark Oil Company; to Mr. A. F. Gilmore, of the 
Gilmore Oil Company; and to Mr. W. W. Orcutt, geologist of the 
Union Oil Company. 
PREVIOUS KNOWLEDGE OF THE REGION. 
After the researches of William P. Blake and Thomas Antisell, geolo¬ 
gists accompanying the Pacific Railroad exploring expeditions, who 
visited southern California in 1853 and 1855, respectively, and of 
J. D. Whitney, State geologist, who went over portions of the same 
territory in the early sixties, no important geologic investigations in 
the region of Los Angeles or in the southern California oil fields in 
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