(Wireline 19) I am a school teacher in Pasadena.

In the fifties electrical and other logs had just been run in wells for thirty years. The electric log was conducted on almost every well. In 1927 the sonde (logging tool-French for sinker) was pulled up the hole a meter at a time and stopped while readings were taken. The readings were plotted, a line was drawn through the points, and there was the first electrical log. In the fifties the sonde was pulled out of the well at 5000 feet per hour taking readings of different spacing continuously. Recorded on film, so prints could be made immediately. Other tools were put in the well to record other logs. Now they can run a half dozen logs with one trip in the well.

Much study and literature on the interpretation of these logs was present. The literature on well logging was extensive. Schlumberger presented a thick booklet of the charts required to correct these logs for hole conditions and other factors. Every year for about ten years Schlumberger put on a log interpretation school in the various divisions.  Early ones in California were held at the Huntington Hotel in Pasadena. A real classy place.

Hundreds of oilmen showed up and marched from classroom to classroom for various classes.  I was one of the classroom teachers. We had months of preparations and rehearsals. A thick notebook of literature was prepared for each student. We would spend several hours as a group, the night before school, collating the notebooks.  Chart-books would be furnished.

I tell you that was exciting! One year I was the Dean of the School and would walk through the ballroom gently ringing my bell to signal that it was time to go to the classrooms.

Schlumberger had a large cottage on the grounds for us. We would have breakfast served in the dining room of the cottage. There would be poker games every night. It was like a frat house, I guess.

Archie's Law

Good old Archie's Law. Derived by Gus Archie of Shell Oil. Basically it says that "the resistivity of a sand varies inversely with the per cent water saturation in the sand". With knowledge and a few assumptions it said that if the resistivity increased four times from a wet zone, the water saturation had decreased to 50 per cent. This was good assuming that the other 50 per cent of the pore space is filled with hydrocarbons.