hayes.] ASPHALT DEPOSITS OF PIKE COUNTY, ARK. 355 
The extent to which the deposit can be used for paving purposes in 
competition with other asphalts will be determined entirely by the 
matter of freight rates. It should easily control the market in near-by 
cities, such as Little Rock, Texarkana, and Fort Smith, and the 
richer portions of the deposit should compete advantageously with 
other asphalts in cities as distant as Memphis and St. Louis. 
No experiments have yet been made in refining the asphaltic sand 
for the preparation of pure asphaltum, and this may be found to be 
more profitable than shipping the crude product. 
From the large amount of bituminous matter in these sands, it was 
inferred that petroleum in commercial quantities might be found by 
deep boring, and two wells were drilled for oil. The wells penetrated 
from 100 to 120 feet of the Trinity formation, consisting chiefly of 
sands and clays, with a few thin seams of limestone, and then entered 
the Paleozoic sandstones and shales. The latter are highly contorted, 
dipping at angles of 45° to 55°, and are intersected by numerous 
fractures. No oil in commercial quantities has ever been discovered 
in rocks of this character, and it will readity be understood that, even 
if they had originally contained oil, it would, before the deposition of 
the Trinity, have had abundant opportunity to escape to the surface 
through the fractures which resulted from the folding of the strata. 
The expectation of finding oil, therefore, in this region at greater 
depth than 100 or 200 feet, that is to say, in the underlying Paleozoic 
rocks, has no rational basis. Also, it need not be expected that oil 
in commercial quantities will be found at shallower depths, since the 
conditions are not favorable for its retention in these sands. 
In view of the foregoing considerations, deep drilling in this region 
is not justified by even a remote probability of finding oil in commer- 
cial quantities. On the other hand, the conditions for the accumu- 
lation of asphaltum are most favorable, and it \p quite probable that 
other valuable deposits will be found in this region, similar to that 
above described and at the same horizon. 
