TEXAS NATURAL GAS

Evening Star, Issue 20253, 14 August 1929, Page 9

TEXAS NATURAL GAS

FED ID FAR-OFF CITIES 9,000 MILES OF LIKE JiALLAK (Texas), July 25. Blue flames of Texas natural gas, fed by apparently inexhaustible fields, serve homes and industries of 1,000 cities through hundreds of miles of" high-pres-sure pipe lines, which will be augmented by 500 miles more in the 1929 building programme. Already this State’s mileage exceeds 9,000, with many more to carry the fuel beyond its borders, to distant cities. Not only cheaper and more convenient _ fuel, but smokeless cities, am credited to the development of this resource. In Dallas, for example, it is not necessary to wash the exteriors of the many white stone buildings, as not a wisp of smoko comes from the countless smoke stacks, and the residents take much pride in its'cleanliness. 460-MILE GAS LINE PLANNED. A single gasser .is capanic ot producing onougu gas in one day to supply tile neeus ot a town ior a year, ana Texas Has ,1,-iuu active gas weii.s. '(lie mg protilcm has been distribution rather than production, but to-day UUU,IMi cubic feet a day oi this onetime waste product is being harnessed for domestic and commercial uses, a product winch until comparatively recently was but an annoying release in the search lor oil.

.Highly per. ceilt, of the U,000,00U population of Texas is served by this hie!, while Texas is sending a supply to cities as far away as Omaha, Denver, and Kansas City, as well as to Mexico; Supremacy in ibo length of gas pipe lines i.rom. Texas, however, is being challenged, by the adjoining State ol Louisiana. From the Monroe field ot that State is being built a 4.(30-ih do 'l:i\ n line to St. Louis and intermediate points, at a cost of £6,UOO;UOO. . .Contract is also being let for a -128-niile line from the Monroe and Richmond fields to Atlanta, costing £8,(100,000. With the fast-increasing industrialisatkm of North Texas a fourth main lino of *2oin diameter is building in Dallas from the Petrolia field in North-west Texas, a. distance of 135 miles, SHIFTING «I VJSU HKDS. Faster development of the gas industry has followed mastery of the problem of getting the linos across the Texas rivers. These watercourses, inday trickling or stagnant streams of insignificant proportions, and to-morrow a mile wide torrent, have • tested the skill and resourcefulness of engineers. Continuous service has been ensured by development of the gas bridge, preventing the washout of the line in time of liood. These imposing structures loom high above wide stretches of mud fiats or sandy stream beds.

Formerly it was a guessing contc c t as.to where the river would change )U course, ami many times expensive bridges would bo left high and dry on the prairies while the river cut around, washing out the gas line in unexpected places. In many cases this has been met by forming sand bafs by jetties for thousands of feet on either side of the bridge. / River problems are almost as numerous as the rivers. Trestle, suspension, and pony truss bridges ore all in use, determined by the formation. A mile trestle bridges a salt marsh near El Paso. On Red River, near Byers) is a suspension bridge 2,522 ft long. Jn building a similar structure across the Brazos, it was necessary to sintf piers 4oft to pierce the‘shifting sand for a clay foundation.