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Show REPORT OH VIRGIN ; OIL JSNOJISTRICT Government Issues a Timely Chapter on New Field in This State. BETTER FUEL THAN THE TEXAS VI ELD Future of Virgin Section Not Uiipromisiug. but Work Will Decide. The rocent discovery of petroleum near Virgin City, Utah,, has caused much local oxcitemenl; and attracted considerable capital, but outside of newspaper items very little has been published concerning the oil. To help ! supply ihe demand for information, a brief account of the occurrence has been prepared by Mr. Georgo B. Richardson Rich-ardson of the United States geological snrroy and published by the Survey, in an advance chapter from Bulletin No. 340, which forma part 1 of "Contributions "Con-tributions to Economic Geology, 1007." Copies of this chapter ma3' bo obtained by applying to the director of the sur-vev sur-vev at Washington. D C. The new oil district is situated in the plateau provinco in the southwestern corner of Utah, noar the eastern boun- darv of the Basin ranges. The region is drained by the Virgin river and its tributaries. Tvhich flow through steep nud narrow canyons among Borne ot tho grandest scenery ou the continent. This region was described more than a quarter quar-ter of a centurv niro bv !M"r (',. E. Thit ton in a report entitled "The. Geology of tho High Plateaus of Utah." Oil soeps have long been known in tho vicinitj' of Virgin City, and one of them that occurs ' close to the river, about ono and a half milee west of the town, led to the sinking of the discovery well in tho summer of 1907, Oil was struck on July 13, 1007. at a. depth of nG6 foot below the surface, and the well was sunk to 610 feet. This w-ell is said to 3'ield about ten barrels in fwen-ty-fonr hours. Claims have beon staked far atid wide, but oil has not yet becu found outside of tho imraediato vicinity of Virgin City. A sample of tho oil was taken by Air. Richardson from an open vat, where it had been exposed to tho -weather for a weok or moro, and submitted to Dr. David Da-vid T. Day, tho poiroloum expert of the survey. Dr. Day's examination of the sample showed the oil lo have a s-paciflc gravity of 0.9225. equivalent to 22 degrees- Baumo and to contain some parallino. a large percentage of asphalt and apparently considerable &ulphur. A. ! larger ample received bv Dr, Day had a specific gra.vitv of 0.018. or 225 dc grocB Baume. Commenting on the results re-sults of his analyses of this oil, Dr. Da.7 says: "It is evident that though a satisfactory sat-isfactory illuminating oil can be obtained ob-tained from this Utah crude petroleum the yield is comparatively small and tho oil is better suited for use as a fuel." Much of tho sulphur in tho oil is in tho form of hydrogen sulphide, easily separated sep-arated by steaming, nnd honco the oil is preferable to Texns oil for use as fuel. As to tho future of the field little can bo predicted. Whether oil exists in commercially profitable quantities can be determined oylv by the drill. The thickness of the oil-bearing stratum has no bceni reported, and w-Jicther or not it is' persistent over a wide area is undetermined. unde-termined. It i3 probable thnt tho oil occurs oc-curs in lenses rather than in persistent beds, and to .iudge from -what is kuown of the geology, the general conditious are not unpromising, although there are some unfavorable complications. |