WHITE, ISRAEL CHARLES

(b. Monongalia County, Virginia [now West Virginia], 1 November 1848; d. Baltimore, Maryland, 25 November 1927)

geology.

The son of Michael White, a progressive farmer, Israel received his early education in private schools. In 1867 he entered what is now West Virginia University, where he studied under John J. Stevenson. who later became an eminent geologist. White graduated in 1872 with highest honors, received the A.M. three years later, and in 1919 was awarded an honorary LL.D. Shortly after his twenty–ninth birthday he became head of the department of geology at West Virginia University. In 1880 Arkansas Industrial University (now the University of Arkansas) awarded him the Ph.D., and in 1921 he received the D.Sc. from the University of Pittsburgh.

White worked on the Second Geological Survey of Pennsylvania and on the U.S. Geological Survey. making a general survey of the coalfields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio that formed the basis for all subsequent detailed study of bituminous coals of the Appalachian region. As an authority on coal he was selected by the government of Brazil to survey and prepare a report on the coals of that country. He advocated and secured the establishment in 1897 of the West Virginia Geological and Economic Survey and headed it for thirty years as state geologist.

White’s most notable accomplishment was the practical application of the anticlinal theory of oil and natural gas accumulation. In this theory, which he promulgated in 1885, he demonstrated the important part played by specific gravities of the fluids in the separation of oil and gas into commercial pools in conjunction with anticlinal and domal types of geologic structures. While others had arrived at the same conclusion independently, credit must be given to White for the successful application of the theory and for convincing the industry of its importance.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Original Works. White wrote over 170 publications. His most important books and papers are “The Geology of Natural Gas,” in Science, 5 (1885), 521–552; in which he promulgated his anticlinal theory; “Stratigraphy of the Bituminous Coal Field of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia,” “Bulletin of the United States Geological Survey, no. 65 (1891); “The Mannington Oil Field, West Virginia, and the History of Its Development,” in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 3 (1892), 187–216; Report on the Coal Measures and Associated Rocks of South Brazil, I (Rio de Janeiro, 1908), in English and Portuguese; “Petroleum Fields of Northeastern Mexico Between the Tamesi and Tuxpan Rivers.” in Bulletin of the Geological Society of America, 24 (1913), 253–274, 706; and “The Anticlinal Theory,” in Report of Proceedings. American Mining Congress, 19 (1917), 550–556.

II. Secondary Literature. See Lloyd L. Brown, “The Life of Dr. Israel Charles White” (M.A. thesis, Univ. of West Virginia, 1936): Herman L. Fairchild, “Memoirs of Israel C. White,” in Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, 12 (1928), 339–351.

Paul H. Price