West Virginia: Its Farms and Forests, Mines and Oil-Wells

Chapter XXIII

 CHAPTER XXIII The Central and Northern Oil Region. THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF WEST VIRGINIA is daily becoming better known, and gaining high appreciation among the workers in oil. Three years ago, while gas springs and oil shows were common in this region, few people at home imagined it possible that oil in paying quantities could exist there, and nobody abroad believed in oil in West Virginia, except at Burning Springs in Wirt County, or possibly in a line extended north and south of that point—the “line of the great upheaval.” That illusion is now dispelled, by heavy strikes of oil in numerous localities, east and west of that line, in West Virginia and in Ohio. In Ohio, on this line, but mostly west of it, paying wells are numerous; in West Virginia, the central oil territory, though comparatively undeveloped, with hundreds of wells commenced, or in process of boring, and giving abundant proof of oil, embraces a broad belt, which includes many counties. Through this territory, on a line nearly parallel with the upheaval so well known to fame, operators are tracing another oil belt, which is claimed to exhibit all the signs of abundant deposits beneath, except the violent dislocation of the surface strata. In this respect, a nearer analogy is borne to the Venango region in Pennsylvania than to the  west vrgna Burning Spring territory. A striking resemblance to Oil Creek, in configuration of surface, is noted in many localities in this central belt. The disruption of the regular stratification, it is assumed, is subterranean, not reaching the superficial and visible strata. And yet there are a few marked evidences of surface disturbance. The Commissioner of Immigration, who resides in Doddridge County, and has given much attention to the subject, gives his views as follows: “If,as conceded by science and confirmed by experience,gas vents and burning springs are indicative of petroleum in the rocks below, and that oil can only be found in the vertical fissures of dislocated strata, then a succession of these phenomena in a given direction, above the surface, may be regarded as a conclusive evidence of a pregnant line of geological disturbance below it. “The indications most generally consulted in prospecting for petroleum , are the dips of the rocks, oil springs, gas and bubbles, whether inflammable or not, salt and sulphur springs, salt licks, and alum rock, or its crystallized exudations. The mineral belt lately explored exhibits a greater abundance and intensity of the latter indications than have so far been suspected anywhere between the lines of uplift east and west of it. “The proximate locality of its axis may be found by tracing a line north from ten to fifteen degrees east, from the great gas springs below the mouth of Duck Creek on Elk River, to the heart of the Pennsylvania oil region in Crawford and Venango Counties, passing the noted Steer Creek and Grass Run Burning Springs in Gilmer, the salt spring, sulphur lick and alum region on branches of Little Kanawha, heading in Doddridge and Lewis counties, the burning spring on McElroy, and numerous mineral indications on Middle Island waters, the mineral region of Fishing Creek, the gas wells at Triadelphia, near Wheeling, and probably at other points in the Panhandle counties. “Although upon the theory advanced above, this line may be regarded as one of strictly subterraneous dislocation, yet it exhibits, so far central ol regon  as explored, at least two instances of notable disturbances above the surface . The most remarkable of these is, a southeastern dip of about fifteen degrees in the whole visible stratification of a spur, or point, facing and shaping in its apparent axis a very acute bend in the creek, beyond which the rocks, though much fractured by vertical rents, appear in their undisturbed horizontal position. Right at the foot of this break, near the creek, gas bubbles are said to rise invariably when the stream gets over its banks, and though I did not happen there on such an occasion, I have no reason to doubt the statement. In comparing the singular geological appearance of this spot with similar ones along Elk and Little Kanawha Rivers, where the most notable gas and burning springs are to be found, the question suggests itself to me, whether the tortuousness of some of our mountain streams, so unaccountably capricious in places, might not be attributed to...