text: V. G. Khlopin began to study the distribution of helium in freely emitting gases of the country in 1922-1923. In 1924, he and A. I. Lakashuk discovered helium in the gases of the Novouzensky district of Saratov province; and in the period from 1924 to 1936, V. G. Khlopin and his students (E. K. Gerling, G. M. Ermolina, B. A. Nikitin, I. E. Starik, P. I. Tolmachev, and others) analyzed many samples of natural gases and created a distribution map based on the data. For the first time a new type of gas jets in the Kokand area, called "air jets" and characteristic of wide mountain basins (1936), was identified.