[Newspaper]
Publication: The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette
Cincinnati, OH, United States
vol. 45, no. 356, p. 1,2, col. 7,1
THE GAS PROBLEM.
CONCLUSION OF THE REPORT OF
INVESTIGATION.
COST OF BRINGING THE TUG FORK GAS TO
CINCINNATI.
WOULD THE INVESTMENT GIVE
PERMANENT RETURNS?
Ashland, Her Strikes, and Her Need of
Natural Gas.
The Industrial World Anxiously
Studying the Question.
Summing Up the Local Situation and Its
Chances.
Special to the Commercial Gazette.
ASHLAND, KY., September 19. — The estimates presented in yesterday’s letter as to the length of pipage [sic] pipeage necessary in bringing gas from the Tug Fork wells to the river towns and to Cincinnati, and as to the cost of such an undertaking, are, in both particulars, greatly in excess of those given out by the parties most interested in the scheme. It is true that a pipe direct from the wells to Covington, in as near an air-line as the topography would permit of, could be laid within about 130 miles; that the cost of this, with all necessary details, would not exceed [dollar:$16,000] a mile; and that a paid-up capital of [dollar:two and one-quarter millions would accomplish the enterprise and leave a working margin of nearly [dollar:$200,000]. But it is equally clear to me that no syndicate which, could be persuaded to undertake so great a work would be willing to neglect the splendid market afforded by the cluster of manufacturing towns in the neighborhood of Ashland and Ironton. They would inevitably go that way, and determine by the measure of their success in that locality whether to push on to Cincinnati. The Barrett people estimate the length of pipage [sic] pipeage to Ironton at about sixty-seven miles, and that to Portsmouth as eighteen miles more — making a pipage [sic] pipeage of eighty-five miles as necessary-to the supply of Catlettsburg, Ashland, Ironton and Portsmouth. All this they think can be accomplished with an outlay of [dollar:$750,000]. My estimate increases the distance by ten miles, and fixes the total outlay at [dollar:$1,250,000]. The reasons for the increase in length were explained yesterday, growing out of the topographical difficulties, and of the necessity of avoiding, in so long a main, the great loss by friction which comes from sharp tangents and steep grades. The disproportionate increase in my estimate of expense are from the belief that the Barrett party have not sufficiently considered, if they have considered at all, the cost of getting across the Ohio River at Ironton and Portsmouth. Here their charter does not help them. They must procure authority from Congress to cross the river, and from the Ohio Legislature to land on Ohio soil. The laying of the river mains must be under the supervision of the U. S. Engineers. They must cofferdam on a pretty extensive scale, which is costly. They must blast some rock on the river bed. Moreover they must lay not one pipe, but several pipes, across the river at each point; though these may be all laid in the same ditch, yet they must all be connected by automatic valves, so that in case of damage to one pipe its supply may be switched off into the others. These automatic valves are very expensive. I am confident that my estimate of a million and a quarter is not excessive to include all the Ironton and Portsmouth district. And, by the the same token it would require three millions and a quarter to include Cincinnati and Covington.
The question of whether, after so long a pipage [sic] pipeage, gas in sufficient quantities would reach the market, is the one which most disturbs the outside observer; and yet, it is no question at all, All the quantities which enter into that problem are known, and are reduced to a fixed rule. That rule is as follows:
Multiply the initial pressure in inches of water by the diameter of the pipe, also in inches. Divide the product by the specific gravity of the gas multiplied by the length of the pipe in yards, and extract the square root of the quotient. Multiply this root by the constant quantity 1,350, and by the square of the pipe in inches, and you will have the number of cubic feet gas discharged per hour at the end of the pipe.
With the known pressure of the gas at the Tug Fork wells, and with its known specific gravity, there will be no difficulty in sending a sufficient supply to the points indicated, especially if sharp grades and tangents are avoided and the recent plan of increasing the bore of the pipe as you go alone is adopted. In the early history oi the Pittsburg discoveries this last mentioned method was not known of. Indeed, the whole thing was in its infancy and blunders were made everywhere. The mains were all much too small, yet in the longest pipes the pressure at the end was excessively great. They furnished the same pressure for domestic uses that they did for manufacturing purposes and grave disasters resulted. The Pittsburg gas is almost odorless, and while no more inflammable than coal gas, it does not give the same warning of its leakage. Hence, with the immense pressure referred to, came the explosions. It is now proposed to decrease and regulate this pressure by tankage at various localities. The danger peculiar to the Pittsburg gas from its lack of odor does not obtain with the Tug Fork wells; the gas there smells loud enough for anybody.
Yesterday's letter closed with the statement that, great as is the outlay required for this enterprise, the money would be speedily forth coming if capital could be persuaded of the permanency of the present situation — if it could be persuaded, first, that the Tug Fork wells will continue, for a long term of years, to flow as now; and, second, that no other gas wells of great yield will be discovered nearer to the markets mentioned. Certainty upon either of these propositions is, of course, impossible; and even the probabilities are rather vague. The Barrett well has continued to pour forth its terrific volume of gas for a period of nearly two years without apparent diminution, and the well just across the creek has done the same for nearly one year. Judging of the future from the past, the supply would seem inexhaustible. The Burning Spring, described in yesterday’s letter, has not abated its supply in a century and a half of recorded history, and it doubtless has been booming away for the hundreds of thousands of years which have elapsed since its geological formation. Yet he would be a rash demonstrator who should attempt to prove that the Tug Fork wells will continue through the next generation to pour forth, as now, gas with a full capacity equal to the daily consumption of eighty thousand bushels of coal. That is a risk when capital must take itself if it undertakes the enterprise at all.
The second question — as to the possible discovery of abundant gas supply nearer to the market — is still less capable of fixed solution. It is reasonably evident that it does not exist in the Ohio Valley round about Cincinnati or Covington. The Moerleins, in their deep well, found nothing of it. The Hemingrays, at their glass-works, in Covington, put down a well some two thousand feet, at an expense of about [dollar:$12,000], in search of it. On their way down they found gas, but of small quantity and poor quality — not at all the kind of gas which is under consideration, but such as any deep mining operation usually develops in meager supply. From Mr. Hemingray, sr., I learn that they have not altogether abandoned hope, nor quite given up the idea of going lower. They are checked, just now, by a flow of sulphur water equal to about 24,000 barrels a day. Modern engineering, born of the oil pursuit, has developed a way of sending your casing down even with your drill, and boring through it, thus letting the water escape on the outside of the casing, but keeping the bore dry. This the Hemingray's are now attempting. A few blocks south of the Hemingray works the brewery of John Brenner has a well which yields a small supply of gas of the same character as that struck in the Hemingray well, and which is being put to some moderate use. But none of the holes dug in the ground, all over this section of Kentucky, have found any gas serviceable for manufacturing purposes. Nor do you find it anywhere until you reach the Big Sandy district. And the phenomenal character of the yield in that locality must be borne clearly in mind. The two gas wells on the Tug Fork are, as to any other known gas wells, as a sperm whale is to a porpoise.
The question of whether a handsome gas well may not be found in the Big Sandy district nearer to the market than the Tug Fork wells is a great one. Mr. Rigdon, of Cincinnati, thinks it can, and, as mentioned yesterday, is making his effort at Catalpa, on the Chattaroi road, twenty five miles south from Ashland. He is so well known in this locality that some details of his experience will be interesting. Twenty years ago he was all over the Big Sandy district prospecting and occasionally boring for oil. Though without profitable success he has not lost faith in the locality, and attributes his failure to being driven from his wells by water — an obstacle which modern engineering now overcomes. Two reasons impelled him to his present choice of locality — the belief that it was as good as any for the discovery of either oil or gas, and the knowledge that if he did find gas there it would be the nearest yield to the Ohio River, and readily marketable. While a profound admirer of the vast power of the Tug Fork wells, he believes that they are so far away that intelligent capital can not be persuaded into the great outlay necessary to their utilization. If he gets gas where he is he can reach Ironton in thirty-one miles — a very different matter from the Tug Fork situation.
Mr. Rigdon's theory was that the limestone stratum which, at a depth of 1,300 feet, covers the gas reservoir on Tug Fork, dips this way, and that he would, therefore, have to go about 1,000 feet to get through it. He has gone now some 1,700 feet, without profitable result; but his confidence is far from destroyed. He says the stratum not only dips this way, but thickens, and that he has not gone deep enough. He passed one bed of limestone, but thinks it a "bastard" limestone — not the real article. He is an admirable narrator, and a phonographic report of the story of his experience would be full of humor. "At about six hundred feet," said he, "I struck a bed of shale, and then I struck — the Atlantic Ocean. Pure salt water, pouring out about twelve thousand barrels a day. I cased down level with the drill, let the water outside, and went on. A few hundred feet lower I struck the Pacific Ocean. Caught ’em both ways. But I beat that too, and now, at over 1,700 feet, I'm struggling with a crooked hole.' But I haven’t played all my cards yet, not by a long ways."
Every coal-oil man knows what "a crooked hole" is; but this is a peculiarly obstinate one, a "nigger-head" — that is, a gneiss spell:bowlder;boulder], lay in his way, and, as luck would have it, not fully under the well. Its edge projected about half across the bore. The bit struck it and deflected, having a sharply-inclined plane of intensely hard material, with not a point for the instruments to catch hold of. All his efforts, with new implements of his own devising, have failed to overcome the difficulty. He is now about to try a heavy charge of nitro-glycerine, with the hope of shattering the "nigger-head." Will he find gas? I hope most sincerely that he will; for he is a man thoroughly posted in his pursuit, of inexhaustible pluck and good humor, fertile in resources, a thorough gentleman and deserving of all the success that a true spirit and a kindly heart should command. As a true chronicler, however, I must join with Prof. White in believing that his well will be a "duster" — a dry hole-and would give a week’s honorarium if my prediction should prove untrue.
The Vincent and Northrup enterprise calls for some attention. Mr. Northrup is Receiver of the Chattaroi road, to which corporation I am indebted for every possible assistance in my arduous trip, (in Blaine Creek, about twenty miles back of Higdon’s derrick, they have an oil well which they have been at work on for about a year and a half. In that time they have gathered into a tank about five hundred barrels of oil. It is a lubricating oil of very great specific gravity and of the finest lubricating quality — quite equal to the Straitsville oil. They are using it on the engines of the Chattaroi road, just as it comes from the well; and the engineers tell me that it is as good a lubricator at they ever had. I should fancy, however, that a long-continued use, in the crude state, without first putting, it through the steaming process, would be destructive to bearings, by reason of the clay which it contains. It comes out from the well on the surface of salt water, and as it is drained from that into its separate tank, it is of a muddy amber color, which it gets from the yellow clay that it holds in solution. After being steamed it becomes of a dark green, and is then one of the finest lubricating oils known. Dissatisfied with the yield, they are sinking another well about two miles up a fork of the Blaine. Both are under the supervision of Mr. Allen, who, as engineer of the Nickelplate Oil Company, put down the two gas wells on the Tug Fork.
— Before summing up the results of my trip, a few words us to Ashland are in order. There is so much Cincinnati capital invested here that the Queen City should almost regard it as an annex to her territory. Mr. Means, sr., the old partner of David Sinton, is very heavily interested in Ashland. Mr. William Means, late Mayor of Cincinnati, has a plant here, and his nephew has about [dollar:$100,000] invested. Among the others concerned in Ashland manufacturing are Gazzam Gand, J. H. Rodgers, John Dickson, Messrs. Winslow and Butler, Captain Wash Hounshell, Captain John Kyle, H. A. Langhorst, Geo. H. Hill, T. R. Spence, and a score more of prominent Cincinnatians. As Secretary of the Norton Iron Works I find, also, Mr. D. B. Meacham, long cashier of the old Cincinnati Times Company — a true man, and a most capable one, beloved of all journalists, and of every one fortunate enough to know him.
The nailers’ strike in the Norton Iron Works, which has been on since last June, is full of interest. A "nailer" superintends a gang of four nail machines, to which the plates are supplied by boys and young men known as "feeders," the latter being paid by the nailer. In addition to this general supervision, the nailer grinds the knives of the nail machines, which has always been claimed to be skilled labor of the highest character, and which has been the chief consideration for the handsome wages
which the nailer gets. Under the rules of the Nailers’ Union the "feeder," even though he works a lifetime, can never be advanced to the rank of nailer. Some time since the Norton Works demanded of the Nailers’ Union that a certain small per cent, of feeders should be, each year, promoted to nailers. The demand was refused. Up to last spring the nailer's compensation was [dollar:twenty-one cents a keg for ten-penny nails, and graded up and down for other nails. By this they were enabled to make sometimes as high as [dollar:ten and [dollar:fifteen dollars a day, common labor getting, the meanwhile, [dollar:one dollar and five cents a day. Then the manufacturers undertook, in the midst of the widespread depression of the iron trade, to cut the compensation to seventeen cents a keg — a reduction of about twenty per cent. Then, in June, the nailers struck. I doubt if the Ashland nailers would have gone out save for the pressure put upon them by the Wheeling branch of the Union (the nailers are not in the "Amalgamated"); but strike they did, and have been ever since. A week ago last Monday the Norton Works executed a master-stroke. They did not bring in a single non-Union nailer — that might have bred violence; but they put in their feeders as nailers. They are now running twenty-three machines, and will have ten more in operation next week. They are making as good nails as ever, and seem to have no difficulty in getting their knives properly ground. The nailers can not attempt any violence against men who have lived in Ashland, and been in these same shops, all their lives; and the great danger to them, of the present situation, is that the trade may thus be taught that the occupation of nailer is not such highly skilled labor after all.
Manufacturing capital at Ashland is remarkably conservative in its expression on the subject of natural gas as fuel. The reason is not far to find. Each of these companies owns vast tracts of coal land, and mines its own coal. They can not afford to talk against their own interests Until they have to; and yet there are abundant evidences that they are quietly giving the subject most anxious attention. The Norton Iron Works, for example, when in full operation, consume about 250 tons of coal per day. Getting this from their own mines it reaches their furnaces at a cost of about one dollar per ton. Excluding Sundays, this makes a cost for fuel of [dollar:$80,000] per annum. A similar enterprise in Pittsburg would get its gas fuel for certainly two-thirds of this. Add to this the saving in labor, in furnaces, and in the quantity of iron produced, and consider also the better quality of the gas-made iron, and one sees at once the gravity of the situation presented to these manufacturers, provided the Pittsburg gas yield continues permanent.
— Summing up the results of a week’s study, which has been of absorbing interest at least to me, I find it necessary to put a heavy weight upon the safety valve in order that I may not run way above prudent limits in expressing what seems to me the gravity of the situation. I can not but believe that if the gas yield in localities where struck continues permanent, manufactories requiring intense heats must either bring natural gas to their doors, or go where it is. I see no possibility for coal fuel to compete with natural gas fuel in such pursuits. The local question of whether the Tug Fork wells can be utilized in the Portsmouth-Ironton district, and in Covington and Cincinnati, in face of the great outlay required, is one which capital itself must answer. I have certainly given to it, impartially and thoroughly, all of the data which the most energetic research could contribute to the solution of the problem. The answer capital alone can give.
No attention has been given in these letters to the question of the use of natural gas for illuminating purposes. I doubt if it is of the density of character required for general illumination, or if it could be made so at an excuse which would leave a satisfactory margin of profit over coal gas. Certainly the minds of those best informed have not been seriously turned in this direction; while, on the other hand, its use for manufacturing purposes is now absorbing the anxious study of the whole industrial world. G. P.
