WONDERFUL GAS WELL IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Globe, Volume V, Issue 596, 17 May 1876, Page 3

WONDERFUL GAS WELL IN PENNSYLVANIA.

Well Estimated to Produce 2,000,000

Cubic Feet op Gas in a Day

An American correspondent of Iron writes as follows of the great gas-well near Millerstown, Butler couuty, Pennsylvania :—lt is wonderful to see this volcano flame exploding in the air. The pressure is so great that the gas cannot ignite till it gets 20ft beyond the nozzle. The stream of gas comes up 1600 ft through a Sin iron pipe, and is conducted off 200 ft another tube, where it finds vent, The general pressure of the gas with the valve open is 8001 b to the square inch. We partly closed the valve and the pressure ran up to 1200; closed it a liltle more aud the tubing began to tremble and the great ton weight holding it down began to lift. It was only a quick turn of the skilful engineer that saved 1600 ft of iron tubing, anchored down with several tons weight, from shooting like an arrow into the air. Theeugineer conducted a half-inch stream of gas into a 12 horse power steam engine, and it ran so fast that the machinery broke. The amount of heat and light in the gas escaping is equal to 2100 tons of coal per day. The gas would light New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. It would run every locomotive in the state of Pennsylvania. It would fill the biggest balloon in half a minute, and burst it into a thousand tatters, or shoot it off like a gigantic bombshell, and, as it is very light —much lighter than ordinary gas—it will be of immense value hereafter in trying balloon experiments. So great was the pressure that engineers say this gas would flow through tubing to Pittsburg, a distance of forty miles, in ten minutes. The pipe lines here push oil twelve miles over hills and valleys with I,ooolb pressure to the square inch, but this gas would push itself to New \ork in a few hours. The well is estimated to produce 2,000,000 cubic feet of gas in a day, The well is named after Mr Delemater who bored it. He was employed by Mr H. Harley, formerly of the Erie railway, who now claims the well. James Murray, who assisted to bore the well, when asked to give me the history of it, said, “ Well, after boring 300 ft we struck rock, solid rock, and followed it for twenty-two days. At the third sand we struck oil, and pumped several barrels. After boring seventy-five days and 1650 ft we struck a flaw in the rock about 6 o'clock. Well, she flew 130 ft in the air. Stones, saltwater, oil, gas, busted like a cannon, and the St Jo people cum rushin’ over the hill ? to find a busted biler and a dead driller, but —we got away from that well, and stayed away till the next morning. It blew all night without being lighted and we dassent go near her for two days. The gas shot up like a mist, cold as ice. You could see it in the air. After two days I got a ball of candle wickin’, soaked it in turpentine, tied a stone to it, lit it, and that night shied it into the gas. She busted like a cannon full of sand. You’d a thought the bowels of the earth were flying out. And light! why the whole basin was as light as day. I could count a flock of sheep away over in the woods ; and the folks away over in Petrolia, 10 miles away, saw it—aud heard it too, and they beard it just as strong today as they did the first night. I tell you this ain’t no slouch of a well.”