Myrl's Studio, Bakersfield, California
A "gusher" in a California oil field wasting great quantities of oil and gas.
Gas has been escaping during many years from hundreds of wells in the Pennsylvania, Ohio Valley, Oklahoma, Texas, and California oil fields. The gas from all these wells together has been estimated to be equal in value to a river of oil flowing several hundred thousand barrels each day. In many districts the gas was nearly gone before people discovered its great value. It is impossible for us to realize the waste which this represents.
It has taken Nature a long time to make the oil and gas which we are losing. When she began this work, the oil regions which have been mentioned were beneath the sea. In its waters lived countless numbers of minute organisms, as well as fish of many kinds. As they died, their bodies accumulated in beds which finally became thousands of feet thick. Then the currents of the water changed and sand and mud were washed over these beds, burying them deeply.
Finally the bottom of the sea was lifted and became dry land. The movement squeezed and folded the rocky layers made of the skeletons of the animals and plants. The soft parts of their bodies held in these rocky layers produced a greenish or brownish oil and gas. The gas tried to escape from the rocks, for they were hot and it wanted more room. In some places it found openings through the rocks and escaped to the surface, usually bringing some of the oil with it. The gas was lost, but a part of the oil remained, forming deposits of tar. In other places the oil and gas could not reach the surface, but found porous, sandy rocks into which they went and remained until the oil driller found them.
The tar springs, or "seepages," indicate to the oil prospector where deposits of oil may possibly be found. He examines the country about and, selecting a favorable place, drills a well. If he is successful, he will strike oil-bearing rocks. The oil may be a few hundred feet below the surface, or it may be a mile below. In the latter case it takes months to drill the well.
If a robber came and attempted to take by force the coal, oil, and gas which we are daily losing through our carelessness and indifference, even though he might put it to better use than we put it, there would at once go up a great cry. We would raise an army and fight for our property, and perhaps suffer great loss in defending it. But, day by day, without making any serious objection, we are letting these natural resources go to waste.
Perhaps in some far distant future, after we have used up the stores of fuel in the earth, we may discover something to take its place; but wise and thoughtful people should make the most of what they have.