China is one of the earliest countries in discovering and using natural gas resource in the world.The great achievements made by both the ancient and modern Sichuan people in natural gas geology

and technology in drilling

exploitationand transportation

etc

rather collectively show an outline of the historical deve-lopment of the tremendous contributions of China.After studing a great deal of his-torical literatures from the Han Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty

and therecent reports of geological exploration

the author tries hard to study systema-tically this long historic process.Namely

the writer has firstly collected and analysed a lot of documents related to the first gas well—Linqiong gas well—in theworld;secondly

introduced the situation of the early use of the natural gas in Si-chuan;thirdly

expounded the exploration and exploitation courses of gas resourcesin Ziliujing saltfield from 16th to 19th century A.D.as well as the construc-tion process of this earliest natural gas production ase in the world;the fourth

emphasised discussion on the experience and working manner in locating wells

identifying lithology

making geological logging and tracing fractures of the pioners who had properly treated the geological task of natural gas;and finally

the author gives a brief review of the three stages in the development of drilling techno logy and the characters of the technology about exploitation and transportation.