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Show : UNDISCOVERED OIL FIELDS "It has been the history of the oil industry since the beginning that about the time the pessimist hadcon-cluded hadcon-cluded that the end of the oil era was in sight that some - new field was opened up to dispel their illusions," says the Western Oil World. "This has been repeated time and time again and is now going to happen in the oil fields of Wyoming and probably prob-ably other states of the Rocky Mountain Moun-tain region. The present apparent inability of production to keep up with consumption is due not so much to the decline of the output, but to the enormous increase in demand, due to the increasing use of the gas-o'ine gas-o'ine engine, which is new further augmented by war conditions. In al." probability Mother Earth contains untold billions of barrels of petroleum. petrol-eum. "There is nothing in the history of oil production to warra'nt the belief that we shall not discover these fields. Like the gold and copper they may be at our back door. Some of the greatest fields in the United States have been found by accident. No surface showing marked the existence ex-istence of the Big Muddy field now arriving in Wyoming. Geologists walked over it hundreds of times and its existence was not learned by men wise in the oil game. The Kern River Riv-er field, near Bakersfield, California, did not have a surface mark of oil. The man who discovered it was a farmer who had detected the presence pres-ence of oil sand in digging an irrigation irriga-tion ditch. It has produced 150,-000,000 150,-000,000 barrels, and will continue to produce for many years. It is impossible im-possible to conceive that there are not more Kern Rivers and Big Mud-dys. Mud-dys. "The state of Wyoming was once the deepest part of an ocean, which has been raised by volcanic action to an altitude far above the present ocean level. Through untold ages the elements have been at work washing away the surface and bringing bring-ing the sedimentary deposits which contain the oil, close to the surface. A few favorable localities have been marked as commercial oil producers. Not one-tenth of 1 per cent of the oil in Wyoming has yet been discovered. It is an oil field from one end of the state to the other and this fact will grip any man who travels over it. There is now a threatening oil shortage, short-age, but unless the demands of war are far greater tnan we now anticipate antici-pate Wyoming, and probably its adjacent ad-jacent states, will supply the shortage. short-age. Give us men and material with which to work and the great Rocky ! Mountain region will furnish oil." |
