Butler.- Area, 820 square miles; population in 1880,
52,536. The county would be an oblong square but that its north-west
corner is cut off. It occupies the high divide between the Allegheny
river (which its north-east corner touches at Emlenton and its south-east
corner touches at Freeport) and the Beaver river valleys; its rainfall
being cast off eastward through short, deep, rocky dells into the
Allegheny, and westward through long, wide, many branched water-ways
of Crooked and Connoquenessing creeks into the Beaver; the flat divide
itself having scarcely distinguishable summits in the north of about
1500 feet above tide, while the river bed at Emlenton is about 950'
and at Freeport about 750'. The southern part of the county filled
with higher rocks is lower in elevation, R.R. grade at Butler being
1010' A.T. The Barren Coal Measures cover the southern half of the
county, and, rising gently northward, occupy smaller and smaller patches
of the highest land until no traces of the remain north and east of
Crooked creek. The Lower Productive Coal measures, nearly horizontal,
crop out along the main valley of Connoquenessing creek and its larger
branches, and (rising gently northward) take possession of the middle
and northern townships; but are in their turn cut through by the many-branched
valley of the Crooked creek, along the steep side-slopes of which
the Conglomerate series (No. XII) crops out with its two little Mercer
coal beds and limestones, its little Quakertown coal bed, and its
Sharon coal bed (of no importance in this county.) The Ferriferous
limestone, carrying its "buhrstone iron ore," crops out on both sides
of Muddy creek for 3 miles; all along the Crooked creek and all its
branches; and along the valley slopes descending to the Allegheny
river in Parker, Allegheny, and Venango townships. The limestone,
varying from 4' to 25' in very short distances, but averaging from
12' to 15' is very fossiliferous, furnishing different species of
the genera Spirifer, Productus, Hemipronites, Chonetes, Euomphalus,
Pleurotomaria, Bellerophon, Nucula, Nuculana, Macrocheilus, Astartella,
Polyphemopsis, Aviculo-pecten, Athyris, Solenomya, Aviculopinna, Nautilus,
Platyceras, Synocladia, Lophophyllum, Orthoceras, Zeacrinus, &c.
Its overlying concretionary and cherty ore sometimes replaces the
limestone and is then of equal thickness. At Millerstown is a locally
workable coal bed in the Mahoning sandstone at the top of the Lower
Productive coal series. The Freeport upper coal bed is generally thin
and sometimes absent in northern Butler, and the F. lower coal is
also irregular and unreliable; the two limestones under these beds
are persistent but feeble. The three Kittanning coal beds are much
alike, persistent, about 3 feet thick, of good quality, and analyzing
43 to 55 p. c. fixed carbon, 36 to 41 p. c. vol. mat., 4 to 12 p.
c. ash, 1.5 to 2.5 water, and 1 to 4 sulphur. The Clarion coal bed,
(below the Ferriferous limestone,) 4 feet thick, and very sulphurous,
is largely mined near Parker and Martinsburg for oil wells; and its
upper bench when separated by many feet of rock is called the Scrubgrass
coal bed. Most of the county is free from glacial drift; but the line
of the Terminal Moraine may be traced near its N.W. boundary, from
Harrisville to Centreville and Mechanicsburg and so into Lawrence
County. The underground petroleum deposits of Butler county have been
extraordinarily productive along a narrow belt - so narrow as to be
a mere line upon the State Map - crossing the river at Parker and
running S.W. towards Butler. Petrolia, Karn's city, Modoc, and may
other towns sprung into existence along its route. The 1st, 2d, and
3d oil sands of Venango county are in Butler county overlaid by a
fourth oil sand, which the Butler drillers called of course their
1st. The Venango 1st and 2d they called their 2d and 3d. It was long
before they could be induced to seek the most productive and deepest
Venango 3d, which ever since has been called the Butler 4th sand.
These oil sands lie at a remarkably constant depth beneath the Ferriferous
limestone; at Greece, for example, 910'---,1189', 1234'; at Fairview,
919',----, 1129', 1189', &c. Six wells at Petrolia, arranged in
an oval 18,000' long by 3000' wide, were measured with extreme care;
and while the Ferr. Lime. (base) sank south-westward from 1060' to
1019' A.T. the top of the 3d oil sand sank from 105' to ---110' A.T.
Some of the most violent gas wells have been got in Butler county;
and although gas is not absolutely confined to any special rocks of
the series, the Butler 1st sand is so noted for its copious yield
that it is called by drillers "the gas sand," although many wells
go through it without blowing gas. The famous Burns, Delemater, and
other wells blow from the 4th sand. Outside the main oil belt and
south of Butler lay a pool of oil under high gas pressure until 1884,
when it was tapped by the Thorn creek wells, one of which gushed at
the rate of 10,000 or 12,000 barrels a day, while neighboring wells
were dry. (See Reports Q, V, and Oil Region Map in R2.)
From: A geological hand atlas of the sixty-seven
counties of Pennsylvania :embodying the results of the field work
of the survey, from 1874 to 1884. By J. P. Lesley. (Report of
progress (Geological Survey of Pennsylvania), v. X ) Harrisburg, PA
: Board of commissioners for the second geological survey, 1885.
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