The time there was interesting. They were involved in a number of activities. At the beginning I worked with instrumentation for measuring the depth of oil in wells by triggering a blank shotgun shell at the top and recording the sound reflections from the joints in the tubing and the much larger reflection from the oil at the bottom. This was done with different pumping rates and permitted a calculation of the potential of the well -- no oil could be pumped if the level fell below the pump.
A more important activity was their prospecting for oil and water. I was in New Mexico for about two months with one of the crews (when traveling on business today it would be unheard of for two to share a room, but in Lovington, New Mexico, in 1939 I shared a bed with one of the crew -- the accommodations in Lovington were not outstanding.) The New Mexico crew would introduce about 2000 volts between probes placed in the ground, sometimes several miles apart, and measure the resulting voltages between the probes to determine the structure of the layers underneath (oil is most available when it is pushed up, by water, into domed underground structures that can be tapped with a well). An interesting facet of this operation was that the wire between the probes would occasionally break inside its rubber covering making it difficult to find the break; I assembled a capacitance bridge and calibrated it to indicate the length of wire to facilitate finding the breaks.
During this period, I visited Beumont, Texas, where I sat outside one very muggy night measuring the resistance between a drill and the earth while it penetrated perhaps 1000 feet. It was a very tiresome operation that didn't seem to yield any useful information. When I reported this to Jakosky, he wanted me to repeat the performance the next night; however, my companion decided to head for Indianapolis for the Memorial day races and I decided I didn't care to do it again.
Driving to Beaumont we passed though Dallas where the new oil money had resulted in just one tall building; the town was referred to as "a small town with an erection"
The measured potentials for the exploratory work are very low compared to the voltage used to set up the current and the ratio of the two was required. I designed a portable unit, described in Appendix IV, to facilitate water prospecting and constructed six at one time, measuring a wire on one and cutting six to install in all of the units. All six worked without trouble. In a book by Jakosky I later learned that he had patented the design of this unit in his name. It should have been my first patent but I had made him mad at me; I had planned to leave the company to return to school, but left early, with a project unfinished, as I felt he had fired another engineer without reasonable cause.
On to Graduate Work at Ohio State
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