PAPERS READ. THE DISCOVERY OF SPOROCARPS IN THE OHIO SHALE. By Prof. EDWARD ORTON, Columbus, Ohio. [ABSTRACT.] AT the Montreal meeting, I described to the members of section E the occurrence in vast numbers of microscopic spores in the shales of Devonian age in Ohio and adjacent states. I have recently obtained a new line of facts in regard to these interesting bodies, in the discovery of the sporocarps or the vessels that contained these spores. In 1863, Sir Wm. Logan noted the occurrence of certain fossils which he characterized as "microscopic, orbicular" bodies in the Upper Erian shales of Kettle Point, Lake Huron, but he made no further reference to their occurrence for a number of years. In 1869, he called the attention of Principal (Sir J. William) Dawson to these bodies, and the latter afterward described them in his report on the Erian flora of Canada (Geol. Surv. of Can., 1871) under the name of Sporangites Huronensis. He counted them the spores of acrogenous plants and presumably of Lepidodendron primævum, the remains of which he found in the same beds. In the April number of the Amer. Journal of Science for the same year, Principal Dawson called further attention to these forms, noting their resemblance to certain fossils from Brazil described by Carruthers as Flemingites, and also to fossils from the white coal of Australia. These shale fossils had been meanwhile rediscovered and studied elsewhere, viz., as they occurred in the bowlder clay underlying Lake Michigan where the tunnel for the water supply of Chicago was driven. Dr. H. A. Johnson and B. W. Thomas, Esq., studied them, figured them, and sent them to distinguished microscopists of this country and Europe without however obtaining a clew to their real nature. The occurrence of the spores in the city water of Chicago was also noted by Mr. Thomas. In 1879, without knowledge of the previous discoveries, I found these fossils once more, in the drillings of a deep well, 800 to 1000 feet below the surface, in Kingsville, Ohio. I made no advance in my knowledge, however, for two years, but at the end of this time, I came upon them again and learned for the first time their universal distribution through the entire shale formation of Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan. By correspondence with Sir Wm. Dawson, I learned of his priority in the discovery and interpretation of these fossils. I adopted his name of course, but the facts presented in my paper at the Montreal meeting led him, as he says, to revise his conclusion as to the origin of the spores and to suspect their derivation from some group of aquatic plants lower than the Lycopods. Professors H. S. Williams and J. M. Clarke contributed some facts as to the occurrence of these bodies in the shales of New York. The next step in advance was taken in 1883 by Sir Wm. Dawson. He received at that time from Brazil, through Mr. O. A. Derby, specimens which threw new light on the whole investigation. Sir William had previously received Sporangites from that country in collections made by Professor Hart, but Mr. Derby's specimens afforded not only the spores, but the envelopes in which they were contained, which occurred as oval sacs. These sacs were found by Sir William to resemble very closely the sporocarps of Salvinia, a member of a somewhat insignificant group of acrogens, known as rhizocarps. The name Protosalvinia was accordingly brought in to displace the earlier designation, viz., Sporangites and we now have five forms referred to the new genus. The original form, P. Huronensis, occurs in vast numbers throughout the entire series of the Ohio shales. In April, 1888, the next advance was made in our knowledge of these forms by the discovery made by one of my students, C. J. Welch, E.M., of sporocarps in the shale series of Columbus, Ohio. The first found were flattened, circular discs, about 4 mm. in long diameter, composed of thick walled, carbonized cells, beautifully reticulated in structure; but, presently, a new and distinct form, elongated and furcated, was found by Mr. Welch, which has been named by Sir Wm. Dawson, Sporocarpon furcatum. Both forms are found in great abundance in certain phases of the shale formation and new light is promised by them as to the rhizocarpean vegetation from which they are derived. Newberry's suggestion that we owe the black shales to a Sargasso sea was a fruitful one, matching the facts better than any other theory of origin. At last, we see the kinds of vegetation that mantled these landlocked basins of the early days. It did not consist of algæ, but belonged to a higher division of the vegetable kingdom, viz., the rhizocarps. It is thus seen to be closely allied to the divisions of plants that were covering the land at this time with a wonderful growth of ferns, Lycopods and Calamites. The vegetable kingdom is divided into two main groups, viz., Phænogams and Cryptogams. The first is by far the more important at the present time. To which do we owe the great accumulations of the stored sunpower of the past as found in coal? To the latter division. But the Cryptogams are broken up into three main series, viz., Acrogens, Anogens and Thallogens. To which of these is the work of coal accumulation due? Mainly, to the Acrogens. The latter are subdivided into the following families: Lycopods, Ferns, Scouring-rushes and Rhizocarps. From which of these is the coal flora derived? Mainly, from the first three. There is left a single division that lacks prominence at the present time, but which we are now following back to a widespread development and to a most important service. The highest office of the vegetable kingdom consists in its storing up the power of the sun. The two permanent forms of stored sun-power are coal and petroleum. Both of them, we owe to acrogens, coal to the terrestrial, and petroleum to the marine representatives of the class. The shale series which we have been considering is as unmistakably the great source of the accumulations of oil and gas in Pennsylvania and New York as the carboniferous formation is the main source of coal. THE NEW HORIZONS OF OIL AND GAS IN THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY. [ABSTRACT.] By In the epidemic of drilling deep wells that has swept through the states of the Ohio valley during the last five years, a vast store of facts of great geological importance has been brought to light and some of them are also immensely important on the economic side. In all this work it is the unexpected which has happened. Four or five horizons from which oil and gas are derived on a large scale have been added to those already known. 1. The first in value is the Trenton limestone. This is at the present time the most prolific single source of bituminous products in the entire country. Wells reaching down to it yield a maximum of thirty million cubic feet of gas per day and maintain their flow for months and years without unusual reduction. Wells also are found in it that produce 5000 barrels of oil in a day and that keep up their flow until totals of more than 100,000 barrels are credited to single wells. The largest connected gas territory in the world derives its supplies from this horizon. The structure of the new fields is so simple and easily read that important light is being thrown upon the problem of gas and oil accumulation everywhere from the facts that obtain here. The porosity of the rocks, upon which its storage capacity depends, is due to a dolomitization of 5 to 50 feet of the uppermost beds of the stratum. To the imperfect interlocking of the dolomitic crystals, the storage chambers of the gas and oil are due. The areas in which this replacement has taken place can be pointed out. Most of the territory is, of course, occupied by salt water, but in the domes or terraces where relief is furnished, the bituminous products are gathered. In production, every foot of relief in the storage rock proves effective. The spirit level gives, in most instances, a good explanation of the behavior of different wells. The depth of the reservoir is found to be a function of the rock-pressure of the gas or oil. All the facts seem to show that this rock-pressure has an artesian origin, taking its rise in the salt-water that lies behind and below it. The latter element is thus seen to be an essential one in every region of high-pressure gas. As to the present production of the Trenton limestone it is only necessary to say that many hundred million cubic feet of gas are surging forth every day throughout no less than 3000 square miles of territory in Ohio and Indiana. Upon this enormous production of light and heat and power, a vast manufacturing interest is being rapidly built up, which is certain to work revolutionary changes in many interests. The supplies have been wasted in a most extravagant way, but they will last long enough to shift the centres of manufactures to quite an extent. The gas is piped with great success to cities forty miles distant from the fields while the oil is carried as far as Chicago in pipe lines, to become the basis of a very important fuel-supply. The production of oil is repressed as far as possible by bringing down the price to fifteen cents per barrel. In spite of this effort, 20,000 or more barrels are brought to the surface every day, and a price of thirty cents per barrel would bring 100,000 barrels to the surface every twenty-four hours, within ninety days. 2. The well-known stratum, the Clinton limestone, proves to be a gas and oil rock of considerable value in Ohio under suitable conditions of relief. The most important gas supply of the Clinton is found at Lancaster. It is probably to this horizon that the Glasgow production of southern Kentucky is due. 3. The Canada oil horizon is shown by the sections that approach it from Ohio and in Michigan, to be in no way connected with the Corniferous limestone as has heretofore been asserted, but it is buried in the great series of Onondaga-Lower-Helderberg age, presuming these two formations, viz., the Onondaga salt group and the Lower Helderberg limestones, to be of one and the same age, but standing for different conditions of growth. 4. The Ohio shale has recently been found to be a source of high-pressure gas in western Kentucky. If anything could be counted settled as to the gas production of a particular formation, the facts as to the Ohio shale might have been so considered, but most of the experience of the Ohio field in regard to it has been set aside by the facts to which reference is here made. Owing to a porosity that the formation has acquired through some of the accidents of its history, it becomes in Meade county, Kentucky, a true reservoir rock, its gas pressure being determined by a salt-water column as in all other true reservoir fields. THE CRETACEOUS DEPOSITS OF NORTH AMERICA. [ABSTRACT.] By Dr. CHARLES A. THIS paper comprised a portion of work upon the cretaceous deposits of North America which Dr. White is preparing for publication. When completed it will appear as a Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey and it is therefore only briefly noticed in this volume. It gave an outline of his proposed work and, by way of illustrating the method of its execution, the paper included that portion of the work which relates to the cretaceous deposits of the Atlantic coast region. The immediate incentive to the preparation of this work is the pressing need of a revised scheme of classification of the geological formations of this continent which shall receive at least the conventional approval of all leading geologists. It is, however, intended that the work, although only a concise summary of what is now known of this subject, shall be of more than temporary use. For convenient treatment of his subject the author divides the continent geographically into regions and provinces, which divisions are in part natural and in part arbitrary. He will attempt to correlate all the sections of North American cretaceous strata that have been published by different geologists which will exhibit the synonymy of the different formations and their equivalents which have thus arisen. ON THE OCCURRENCE OF THE "FOREST BED BENEATH INTRA-MORAINIC DRIFT. BY FRANK LEVERETT, U. S. Geological Survey, Madison, Wis. [ABSTRACT.] THE region under discussion is a portion of northeastern Illinois which is crossed by a series of moraines of the Lake Michigan glacier, older than the moraines described by Prof. T. C. Chamberlin in the Third Annual Report of the U. S. Geological Survey (though recognized and indicated in part by dotted lines) and since studied by the writer under the direction of Professor Chamberlin. The "Forest Bed" exhibits a variety of phases: peat, muck, soil, wood, etc. It has been found by well-borings, and samples of these borings have been examined by the writer. 1. Geographic Distribution. There are three main belts: (1) Near Mendota, Illinois, over an area about twenty-five miles in length and two to four miles in width, beneath the inner slope of a morainic ridge, at a depth of sixty to one hundred and forty feet, the distance from the surface increasing with the elevation. (2) In the "Iroquois artesian well district" |