THE HISTORY OF GEOPHYSICAL PROSPECTING
PART TWELVE - GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH CORPORATION

Chapter 33  -  Personal Factors, 1926-1927

The average scientist operating in the field for the Geophysical Research Corporation was under 25, unmarried, usually bought an automobile within six months of the date of his first employment and did his share of courting the lovely maidens in the town whose hotel was housing him. If he happened to be a party chief, the GRC furnished him with a Buick coupe or a Buick sedan. Considering how beautiful were the girls of Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, the only thing that kept our young man single was the fact that he seldom stayed in any one hotel more than three weeks at a time.

Even as late as mid-1928, there were only five wedded couples in the entire ranks of the GRC; the President, De Goyler; the Vice President, Karcher, and three party chiefs. Ben B. Weatherby was married but for the period beginning in September, 1927, and extending into 1929, Weatherby was back at the University of Pennsylvania, finishing his studies for a doctor's degree. The three party chiefs who had been spoken for were Dr. Bates Peacock, Dr. Norman Beese and Dr. Irwin Roman.

The work in 1926, 1927 and 1928 was done by men, who from the top down spent a lot of time in field operations. They learned the geophysical business from being in intimate contact with all phases of seismic surveying. There were only a few desks and there were no feet on any of those few desks. GRC personnel still worked a seven day week. The scientists were eager, resourceful, athletic and hard-working. They feIt proud of being engaged in a new and exciting hunt for hidden treasures of petroleum. The esprit de corps was magnificent.

All GRC parties made frequent migrations from one town to another. Something of a record for moving was set by Gulf Party #1 in the late spring of 1926. From Houston the party was ordered to Liberty. Arriving in Liberty, it was ordered to Beaumont. Before the trucks could be unloaded at Beaumont, Party #1 was told to go on to Lake Charles, Louisiana. Two more stops in the interior of Louisiana and finally one at New Orleans; which concluded the eastward trek. Party #1 was not permitted to remain in New Orleans. The men were allowed a few hours sleep in their trucks, then turned around and headed back toward Texas. Once more there were intermediate pauses in the journey but only when they had once more entered the town of Liberty, Texas, were they told to register at a hotel and get a sound night's sleep. From Houston to New Orleans back to Liberty had consumed a total of eleven stops without a shot being fired. Rain had fallen steadily throughout the entire trip, some seven hundred miles, and the only pavement in the whole stretch was 12 miles of hard-top between Nome and Beaumont. And, of course, in those days one took a ferry across the Mississippi, the Atchafalaya, the Sabine and a few other assorted rivers. Thus transpired one of the worst mud-battles in all the annals of motor transportation. All doodlebugs in good standing wore knee-high leather boots and could they grow heavy when coated with generous layers of Texas and Louisiana mud!

Rather typical of the times was the career of Dr. H. Bates Peacock, who accepted a job with the GRC in Houston, early in September of 1926. From Houston he went to Weatherby's Pure Party in Bay City, Texas, and moved witb the crew from Bay City El Campo. Peacock attached himself to the field crew and watched the procedures in refraction shooting. His first lesson in driving through the mud was with Weatherby in Weatherby’s old Dodge touring car; not old in miles, just old in wear and tear. When the two of them  …

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... pistol at five cases of dynamite resting at the edge of the road (a total of 250 pounds), his three companions began to run but McNew fired before they could get very far away.

McNew and one af the helpers suffered punctured eardrums from the explosion and all four men required some days of hospitalization before they could return to their field duties. Their clothes were literally ripped from their bodies and the fine splinters of wood sticking from their skin made them look like human porcupines. The one piece of clothing intact was their belts. Three of them could hide behind their rags but the fourth had to borraw a butcher's apron to hide his nakedness from public view as Duncan marched them down the main street of Maud to the doctor's office. After a preliminary medical examination, they were loaded aboard an ambulance and sent to a hospital in Shawnee. The head men in the GRC were very much disturbed by this accident. All party chiefs began lectures on safety rules and regulations. Dr. Karcher issued strict orders that absolutely no one on any field crew would be allowed to carry any kind of firearm.

Duncan was the first instrument troubleshooter for the GRC. He was the man who first got usable reflections, the starting point for modern geophysical exploration. Duncan was destined to register two more seismograph firsts in the year 1927. In May, Amerada allowed him to lower a charge of dynamite plus nitroglycerine to the top of the Viola limestone in its Anderson #7, a dry hole on the edge of the Earlsboro field that was about to be plugged and abandoned. Practically the entire Amerada Petroleum Corporation's geological staff from Tulsa, including Dolly Radler and Polly Bray, turned out for what was to be the first direct average velocity determination in a weIl. The geophone was at the surface, when the charge was detonated.

In the summer of 1927, Duncan, with the assistance of Maurice Ewing and William Ransone, shot a Kansas well for average velocity, the way it is done today. This weIl was furnished through the courtesy of Walter B. "Shorty" Wilson and the Gypsy Oil Company (Gulf). For the first time in the history of geophysics, a geophone was lowered in a weIl to the top of the Viola limestone, approximately 5,000 feet, and a dynamite charge detonated at the surface in order to effect an accurate determination of the average velocity to the Viola limes tone.