HAWORTH. | Origin of Oil and Gas. 195 
throughout geologic time. If it is true for masses of stratified 
rock now existing, likewise it has been true for masses 
of stratified rock removed by erosion during geologic time. 
If one will put himself into a position which makes it 
necessary to give a reasonable account for the whereabouts of 
all this vast quantity of organic matter, animal and vegetable, 
which has been engulfed in the masses of stratified rock, one 
will find that the quantity of oil and gas now available is all 
too small, rather than too large, for such accounting. The 
probabilities that oil and gas have been escaping into the air 
throughout geological time the same as they now are in reality 
does not affect the problem, because such escapes doubtless 
have been no greater relatively than has been the wearing 
away of similar rocks during the same time. 
The interesting relations between productive sandstone and 
shale-beds in the Midcontinental oil-field are of considerable 
importance in this discussion. The conditions already ex- 
plained in detail in the Neosho river valley at Chanute may be 
cited. Here we have gas existing under a pressure more than 
300 pounds to the square inch in a sandstone underlying an 
oil-producing sandstone with from 30 to 40 feet of shale be- 
tween. If, now, there were a passage-way connecting these 
two productive sands, it follows that as soon as a drill reached 
the upper oil-sand, gas pressure from the lower sand would 
produce a gusher. Experience shows just the reverse to be 
the case. Many oil-wells were drilled with none of them hav- 
ing a gas pressure sufficient to make a flowing well. The ques- 
tion at hand is as to how these two materials could have 
worked their way upward from a greater depth and arranged 
themselves in the relative positions in which we now find them. 
How could the oil have gotten above the gas and at the same 
time be separated completely from it? 
The conditions at Chanute are not essentially different from 
those found elsewhere. Already well No. 1 belonging to the 
Kansas Crude Oil Company, near Humboldt, has been de- 
scribed as having an oil-producing sand overlying a gas-pro- 
ducing sand. In the history of that well the oil did not begin 
flowing until the drill had penetrated the gas-sand below. 
Many cases of this kind are known, widely scattered over the 
entire area of the Midcontinental field, a particularly good ex- 
ample in Oklahoma being along Hogshooter creek, where good 
oil-wells abound, the oil being obtained from the sandrock 
