YANKEES BORE DEEP
‘ TO FIND OIL FLOW
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During; the last few years the
Hope Natural Gas company and the
Peoples Natural Gas company, both
of Pittsburgh, Pa., have been drill
ing deep wells in Northern M est
Virginia and Southwestern Pennsyl
vania to find deeper oil-bearing and
gas-bearing sands, their object be
ing to reach, if possible, the horizon
of the rich Clinton sand of Ohio,
which, according to Dr. I. C. White,
the state geologist of West Vir
ginia, should be found in this re
gion at depts between 7,000 and
8,000 feet.
Drilling fo- Deep Oil and Gaa.
The first exceptionally deep well
thus drilled, the R. A. Geary well,
of the Peoples Natural Gas com
pany, is about four miles northwest
of McDonald, Pa., and about twenty
miles southwest of Pittsburg. The
mouth of the well is about 1050
feet above sea level. The well pen
etrates the Gordon stray sand, the
last of the usual gas sands in this
region, at a depth of 1,971 feet.
From this point to a depth of 6,700
feet the strata penetrated are al
ternately “lime” and “slate,” and
from 6,700 feet to the bottom,
7,248 feet, they are “sand” and
‘Time" interspersed with about sixty
feet of rock salt. The second deep
well was drilled by the Hope Nat
ural Gas company on the farm of
M. O. Goff, about eight miles north
east of Clarksburg, in Northern
West Virginia. Its mouth is 1,164
feet above sea level. The well be
gins 200 feet below the level of
the Pittsburg coal and penetrates
the usual oil-bearing and gas-bear
ing sands, the lowest being the Bay
ard, which lies at a depth of 2,2210
feet. The strata in the remainder
of the well are alternately “lime”
and “slate.” The third deep well,
the J. H. Lake, of the Hope Natural
Gas company, is about eight miles
[southeast of Fairmont, West Vir
ginia. It is about twenty miles
! north of the Goff well and about
sixty miles south of the Geary well.
The mouth of the well is about
1,300 feet above sea level. The
Bayard sand, the lowest of the gas
sands, was found in this well at a
depth of 2,050 feet. The remain
ing strata are alternately “lime,”
“slate,” and “sand..”
Four Deepest Wells in the WQ*"ld.
Named in order of depth, the
four deepest wells in the world are
the Lake. 7,579 feet; the Goff,
7,386; a well at Czuchow, Germany,
;7,34S, and the Geary. 7.248. The
two deepest wells in the world are
therefore the Lake and the Goff,
the Lake surpassing the German
well by the large margin of 231
feet. In comparison with these;
great depths, other depths reached
bv wells or mines sunk in the crust
; of the earth are rather insignificant.
The deepest mine in the world is
•shaft No. 3 of the Tamarack mine,
in Houghton cowiaty. Michi., which
has reached a depth of 5,200 feet.
Other shafts of the Tamarack com
pany and of the Calumet & Hecla .
mine, in the Lake Superior region,
reach depths between 4.000 and
5.000 feet. Three shafts in the
Prizbram silver mines, in Austria,
have reached depths of about 3,300
feet. The Victoria quartz mine, at
Bendigo, Australia, is 4,300 , feet
deep. A number of shafts in the
Transvaal gold region of South Af
rica have been sunk to depths of
about 4,000 feet.
Limits to Depths of Mines and
Wells.
The depth to which a mining
shaft can be sunk is limited by the
heat of the rocks, as the tempera
ture at a depth of a mile in nearly
all parts of the earth is so high
that workmen cannot live in it, even
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Miners and Prospectors!
NOTICE OF CHANGE OF REC0R0IN8 PRECINCTS
Accor :ing to a recently issued Court Order by
Judge Chas. E. Bunnell, the Nenana Mining and Re
cording Dis-nct has been enlarged to take in the Bon
nifield and 1 otatlanika Districts.
Miners and Prospectors of these districts will be
enabled by this change to do their recording and trans
act other business at Nenana, which is within easy
reach of their mining activities.
NENANA COMMERCIAL CLUB, 1
R. S. McDonald, H. B. Joseph, i
President. Secretary 1
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with ventilation. The depth to
which a well six inches in diameter
can be drilled seems to depend
chiefly on skill in drilling and
strength of cable. The cable itself
is heavy, and besides carrying its
own weight and the weight of a
drill, which weighs one or two tons,
it must bear strains produced by
vertical movements of the drill,
which may be so great as to break
it at any moment, so that the drill
and a part of the cable may be
lodged in the well in such a way
that they cannot be removed. Ex
ceptional skill is required, there
fore, in operating the ponderous
machinery used in drilling a well.
The drill, which is a column of
steel about five inches in diameter
and 40 or 50 feet long, beveled to
a V-shaped edge at the lower end,
is attached to one end of the cable,
and at some other point, deter
mined by the driller, the cable is
attached to a long beam, which is
operated in the same manner as
the walking beam of a steamboat.
Merely to light the drill through
the height determined by the swing
of the end of the walking-beam
and to let it drop repeatedly would
do no drilling. In order to drill,
oscillations must be induced in the
cable, such as those set up by at
taching a light weight to a sus
pended rubber band. A slight oscil
lation properly induced by the finger
at the upper end of the rubber
band will produce a very large
oscillation of the weight attached
to its lower end. In some such way
as this the skillful driller produces
oscillations in the drill bit, which
throw the sharp beveled edge of the
drill on to the rock with high ve
locity. The only means that the
driller has • of knowing the behavior
of the drill is the general behavior
of the machinery and the slight im
pulses or tremors in the cable, which
he detects by his hand alone.
Deep Drilling Is Instructive.
The information obtained from |
drill holes carried to gTeat depths
is of exceptional economic and sci-;
entific importance. Although the j
wells drilled by the Hope Natural
Gas company and the Peoples Nat
ural Gas company have not yet
reached the goal sought—a depth
of 8,000 feet—they have, neverthe
less, come within 421 feet of the
goal, and incidentally they have es
tablished the fact that no valuable
deposits of oil exist in the imme
diate vicinity of the wells at depths
somewhat greater than 7,000 feet.
What's in the Interior of the Earth ?
The materials and the conditions
in the interior of the earth have
long been a favorite subject of spec
ulation among scientific men. Ac
cording to the modern mathemati
cal theory' of the propagation of
earthquake waves through the earth,
the outer rock shell of the earth,
which is about two and one-half
times as heavy as water, extends
!to a depth of less than 1,000 miles,
i Inside of this shell is some material,
probably metallic, which is more
than five times as heavy as water.
Estimates of the temperature at the
center of this nucleus range from
: 3,000 to 180,000 degrees Fahren
heit, but these figures have little
;or no value, for mathematicians
have not yet found the law of the
: distribution of temperature from the
| surface to the center of the earth.
(The temperature evidently increases
jwith the depth, a fact again con
i firmed by an elaborate series of
Observations of temperature made in
each of the three deep wells, the
Geary, the Goff, and the Lake, by
C. E. Van Orstrand, of the United
States geological survey, department
of the interior. In each of these
wells the temperature at a depth
of 100 feet is about 55 degrees
Fahrenheit, and gradually rises with
increase in depth, reaching 142 de
grees Fahrenheit in the Gearv well
at a depth of 6,100 feet, 159.3 de
grees in the Goff well at a depth
of 7,310 feet, and 168.6 degrees in
the Lake well at a depth of 7,500
feet- The observation at a depth
of 7,500 feet in the Lake well was
made at the deepest “point yet
reached by any observer.
Unexplained Enormous Hut.
The source of the enormous quan
■ tity of heat stored in the interior
;of the earth is not known. Some
writers think this heat is due to
the disintegration of radium in the
■rocks; others think that the earth
is a cooling globe, radiating heat
developed during condensation from j
| the original nebula, and others think J
that it is due to various causes,
such as radioactivity, chemical reac
tions, impacts from meteorites, or
condensation from nebulous materi
al.
Some Interesting Results of Deep
Drilling.
The strata of lime, slate, and»
sand penetrated by these deep wells
were originally sediments deposited
from ocean water. A bed of ocean
water was actually found in the
! Geary well at a depth of 6.260
feet. Dr. 1. C. White, state geolo
gist of West Virginia, with whom
the United States geological survey
is co-operating in these investiga
tions, is of the opinion that this
water is a fossil ocean, imprisoned
since mid-Paleozoic time. Interest
ing evidence in regard to the geo
logic history of the formations was
• obtained by Charles Butts, of the
| United States geological survey, who
| identified a number of fossils from
'depths of 7,187 to 7,355 feet in
the Goff well. The material from
. the Lake well has not yet been
fully examined. It may be possi
ble by examining the fossils to
determine the geologic ages and
horizons of the beds penetrated and
so to estimate the depth at which
the Clinton sand should lie beneath
the bottom of this well. The well
probably does not pass through more
than one-half the total thickness of
; sediments in this region.
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