File:Bulletin - New York State Museum (1899) (14782638644).jpg

Title: Bulletin - New York State Museum
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: New York State Museum New York State Museum
Subjects: Science
Publisher: Albany : New York State Education Dept
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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regions in New York, Ohio andWest Virginia were content. Not an oil well was known outsideof these limits and it came to be everywhere recognized as en-tirely practicable to determine on such a basis the regions inwhich the search for petroleum could be undertaken with fair-prospects for success as well as the regions into which it wouldbe folly to introduce the drill. This limit was practically in onedirection only, namely, in descending the geologic column, forin eastern North America the Coal Measures are the latestformed and so the highest strata of the scale, with a few insignifi-cant exceptions. But when Silurian or older rocks constitute thesurface such territory was at once condemned, on the basis ofthe generalization above described. The overthrow of this premature generalization came fromnorthwestern Ohio in 1884-85 by the discovery of gas and oil inlarge amounts in the Trenton limestone. An immediate exten-sion of the possible range of these substances was effected by this
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PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS IN NEW YORK 423 discovery. It is true that an oil field of somewhat doubtfulhorizon and of rather insignificant production had already beendeveloped in northwestern Ontario. The productive rock hadbeen referred by Dr T. S. Hunt to the lower Devonian, and thoughthis determination was questioned, the doubt was directed to alower rather than a higher horizon, but no great weight wasassigned to this oil field, so that the inclusion of the Trentonlimestone among the productive oil rocks of the country camewith a shock of surprise to both the scientific and the practicalmen interested in this question. The discovery carried the pro-ductive horizons of oil down several thousands of feet in verticaldescent and enlarged the superficial area of possibly productiveterritory many fold. In fact, it transformed almost the entirearea of the eastern United States into possible oil territory, sofar as its range of rocks is concerned. The only regions excludedwould be the Arch

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