Oil Structures in Iowa

The smooth, illimitable prairies of our state offer to the public little encouragement for prosecuting systematic search for such forms of mineral wealth as natural gas and rock-oil. Yet, the possibilities are never absolutely negative; they are not nearly so hopeless as layman may imagine. On this score the bed-rock structures have a tale to tell that is a very different story from what might be ordinarily expected of so featureless a country. Before its prairies came lofty mountains, both within the present limits of the state and without in surrounding territory. Even the effects of the distant Rocky Mountains upheaval reach eastward to us, the arching of the Ozarks leaves noticeable traces with us, and the Black Hills come down to our very doors