THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART FIVE - TWIN PEAKS OF EARTH SCINCE

Chapter 14  -  Wallace Everette Pratt

When Wallace Pratt alighted from the train at Lawrence, Kansas, on a September day in 1903, he found a horse drawn taxi carriage ready to take him and his suitcase to the Boston Hotel. He inquired of the taxi driver where he could locate the man in charge of delivering the Kansas City Star in town. After checking in at his hotel, Wallace went in search of the Kansas City Star representative. Having found this individual in his office, Wallace told him that his brother Frank had delivered the paper to help defray his college expenses and Wallace wanted to afford himself of the same opportunity. The man was sorry but there were no openings and no prospects of any openings.

"Do you know of anyone in Lawrence who might give me a job?" inquired Wallace.
"WeIl, Malcolm Hawkins just committed suicide," said the newspaper man.
"What has that to do with me?" asked Wallace, a little startled.
"The New Eldridge House is going to need another clerk," said the man.

Wallace wasted no time in seeking out the proprietor of the New Eldridge House, whom he found ready to talk business. This was the beginning of his employment as night clerk, which was to last throughout four college year terms. In exchange for his services, Wallace "received his board and room.

The high school curriculum at Phillipsburg had been a trifle inadequate for entrance into the University of Kansas. Wallace had three conditions to make up; his first enrollment took care of the deficiencies and also started him in his first course in chemistry. He liked chemistry and he took many courses in it. In two years he would begin running sampIes for the Kansas Geological Survey. In four years, Wallace's ability in chemistry at the University was to earn him enough money to allow him to quit his job as night clerk and get a full night's sleep every night.

During his first summer vacation, Wallace went from town to town and from door to door, selling stereopticon slides. The second summer vacation found him selling scenic prints in a similar door to door campaign. He was able to save $150 the first summer and nearly $200 the second. During the summer of 1906, Wallace was working as a "mucker" in a lead mine in Elizabeth, Illinois. From then on, working his way through school became more and more associated with various duties for the Kansas Geological Survey, including summer jobs.

In the fall of 1904, there happened to Wallace Pratt an accident which was to set his footsteps firmly upon the path of geology. Erasmus Haworth, grand old man of Kansas geology, decided one evening that it was imperative for him to send a telegram to the State Geologist of Iowa at Iowa City. In those days one could not pick up a telephone and send a telegram the way we do it now. The party had to take the telegram to the Western Union office and pay for it in cash. Dr. Haworth pondered the problem in search of a means of saving himself a long trip downtown. Had he not heard somewhere that the night clerk at the New Eldridge House was usually a student?

Dr. Haworth telephoned the hotel and asked Wallace if he was a student "on the hilI." The hilI is Mount Oread, the site of the Kansas campus. Wallace replied that he was a student.

"Are you in one of my classes?"
"Yes, sir. I am number 76 in Geology Two."
"Fine! Will you be so good as to send the following telegram for me, pay for it, and let me reimburse you after class Monday morning?"
"I shall be glad to do it, sir.“

In his letter of April 8, 1965, Wallace Pratt made this statement: "This encounter set the course of my life. Through it, I came to work spare time , between classes and on Saturdays, in the Geological Survey - drafting, chemical analysis of cement materials - all was grist to my mill, at 25 cents per hour. At length, after four years, I was able to give up my work at the Eldridge House.“

In this manner Pratt became more than a number to Erasmus Haworth. xxxx Dr. Haworth was both head of the Departrnent of Geology and head of the Geological Survey, Pratt and Haworth were in close association. Conversations sprang up over problems in geological interpretation, over field trips, over a lot of mutual interests. A warm friendship blossomed between teacher and pupil as Professor Haworth began to appreciate the potentialities of the young scholar. This budding scientist believed in fundamentals. He carried mathematics through integral calculus, unusual for geologists of that era. He neglected neither chemistry nor physics.

The three degrees awarded to Wallace Pratt in the suceeeding years of 1907, 1908 and 1909 of A. B., B. S. and M. A. is indicative of the breadth of his training in the six years spent in residence. The A. B. required grounding in the humanities; the B. S. was roughly what would now be required for a B. S. in Geological Engineering. The M. A. was in geology. In 1914, Mr. Pratt presented a geologieal dissertation for whieh he received the professional degree of Engineer of Mines in Geology.

Upon receiving his master's degree, Wallace was ready to set out upon his professional career. He accepted a position as geologist in the Division of Mines, Bureau of Scienee, Phillipine Islands. A year and a half after going to work in the Phillipines, Mr. Pratt would have us think that he was struck by luck.

On January 29, 1911, Taal Volcano, seventh miles south of Manila, erupted violently and shocked the world into the knowledge of its existence. The Chief of the Division was on vacation. The second in command was in China. Wallace Pratt was in Manila with no particular assignment. He knew the geological history of Mount Taal very weIl, and on his own initiative undertook to find out what had happened. He got to the crater before any other competent observer had arrived. He was the first to realize that thousand of people had been killed and that thousands of others were homeless needed assistance. Pratt took charge and became the source of information about the condition and needs of the survivors.

A year later he was promoted to Chief of the Division of Mines at then excellent salary of $3,600 a year. As Pratt puts it:

"The eruption made me. It took a cataclysm to do it.“

Seventy miles east of Phillipsburg on the Rock Island Railroad is the small town of Formoso Kansas. In Formoso lived Miss Pearl M. Stuckey, who had entered the University of Kansas at about the sam time as Wallace Pratt. Tho two met, dated and had fallen in love in Lawrence. When Wallace was ready to depart for the far away Phillipines in 1909, the young couple had agreed to wait a year or two to marry. Wallace had written in 1911 that he hat high hopes of a promotion and asked how Pearl felt about coming to the far East. The return letter expreised her willingness. Still, her parents were strangly opposed to their daughter going to such a primitive country and wanted time to work things out.

Eventually Pearl won over her family to the idea that she must be joined to Wallace in matrimony without more delay. Five days after Christmas in 1912 they were married in Japan and after a brief honeymoon, sailed for Manila. Upon arrival in Manila, Wallace took over his new duties as Chief of the Division of Mines. To Mrs. Pratt, Manila never seemed like home. She xxxx when Wallace was away on a field trip into the jungle. After two years on the Islands, the Pratts mutually agreed that there was no place like home. Wallace Pratt resigned his excellent position with the Bureau in 1915.

Xxxx 1916 found Mr. Pratt working for the Texas Company. Under its able Chief Geologist, Elmer Grant Woodruff, Pratt was sent to Mexico for, a year to learn the details of mapping, surface geology and other skills required of a petroleum geologist in the field. When he returned to the state of Texas, he was assigned to the Wichita Falls office as district geologist. Even in those days the Texas Company had a reputation for its "tough' economic policy. It was this policy that lost the company the best oil finder of all time.

In order to obtain his job as geologist at $2,000 the first year and $2,400 the second, Wallace Pratt had to sign up for a two year working periode. A few months before this two year contract was due to expire, Pratt was presented with another work agreement, wherein he was asked to acquiesce to work for an additional period of two years at a tiny increase in salary. Pratt refused to sign another such agreement. Elmer Woodruff's immediate superior was Clement N. Scott, who two years later was to become a Vice President of the Texas Company. Pratt had sent in his resignation to Woodruff after saying that the second two year contract was unacceptable. Somehow Scott got wind of the resignation on Woodruff's desk. Scott informed Woodruff that Wlallace Pratt could "resign right now." Woodruff, realizing Pratt's value as an oil geologist, persuaded Wallace to stay on until the end of his two year contract.

It turned out that a recently resigned Vice President of the Texas Company, Frank Cullinan, brother of "Buckskin Joe" Cullinan (Texas Company first President) had long been an admirer of Wallace Pratt's geological abilities. Frank Cullinan informed Robert Blaffer and William Stamps Farish that they needed Pratt's geological abilities. Blaffer and Farish headed the newly formed (1917) Humble Oil and Refining Company. R. E. Blaffer was on hand to see Pratt the day the two year contract with the Texas Company terminated. He offered a starting salary of $300.00 a month, considerably more than the best offer of the Texas Company. Blaffer took Pratt to meet W. S. Farish. Farish had for some time been in touch with geologists and had been studying geological publications. Farish knew why Humble needed an able geologist, he knew why Humble was going places in the oil business and he knew why he wanted Pratt as his first geologist and to act as the head of a geological department that he instructed Wallace to build. Pratt was convinced that Humble offered the challenge he had been awaiting. He accepted the job. The date was March 1, 1918.