PETROLIA.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume I, Issue 60, 11 June 1873, Page 3

PETROLIA.

(Continued from our last.) Referring to the careless habits of smokers, to which allusion has above been made, the same correspondent writes, “ So bad is this ▼apour ” (the rush of inflammable gas from the wells), “ even for Pithole, that the tanks are covered with huge wooden lids, each having a wooden, spire-shaped chimney, rising from its-centre, to take off some of the gas as high as possible. Yet, in spite of the horrible danger that fire threatens, one can scarce say that much precaution is taken against it. I have spent many hours in great powdermagazines, yet, on the whole, I would rather pass a month in them than a day by the great wells of Pithole, which are simply as dangerous as any powder-magazines, without one of their precautions. “ It is true that, at every hand, one meets with warning notices, such as ‘No Smoking,* 4 Beware of Smoking,’ ‘ Smokers will be Lynched,’ etc., etc.; yet, in spite of everything, smoking does go on on the sly, when teamsters and others can slip into the brushwood and furtively light their pipes, even though, like miners who do the same ein fiery pits, they know they do so at the risk of their own lives and the fives of those around them. As an instance, when we visited the United States Weh, a man in charge asked us to give up all the lucifers and fusees we had About us before going up to the blow-pipe. This demand was conscientiously complied with, and the collection from a large party made a pretty good handful, which was taken and thrown into the stream outside, but so carelessly that nearly one-half alighted on the little wooden bridge across it. The very first group that passed over thia bridge trod upon the matches, setting them on .fire, and there was a rush and a scurry to hustle them into the stream.” The appearance of the country around Petrolia at night is wild in the extreme. M As darkness falls, the iron pipes which give off the gas above the derricks are lit at their ajunmits, one after another, with a dull exploding boom ; heavy -sheets erf flame leap roaring and glaring about, and by the .light of these, among the woods, men work as easily as at noon-day- Then the acene is wonderful in its wild picturesqueness—so wonderful in its .curious effects of light and shade as to defy description. It is as if iron-works, coal-mines,

blast-furnaces, and huge gas-works were suddenly scattered pell-mell along a deep ravine of an American forest. Great masses of pines, lit to their very summits by the intense glare ; with gloomy avenues of trees, so dense that no light penetrates ; men cutting them down and building derricks, notching trees, working at the wells, filling barrels ana rolling them away to meet the morning’s demands'; and beyond all, at either side on the hills above the creeks, there seems a flickering illumination going on, amidst an incessant tap-tap of hammers from the carpenters, who keep at work, nailing the houses of Pitbolt together, or trying to build its timber side-walks so as to render the town not only habitable, but passable.” The presence of oil is indicated either by the smell of the surrounding atmosphere or by the appearance of an oily scum on the neighbouring pools of water, and there are persons who make it their business to discover these indications.

The sources of petroleum oil are, of course, the vast coal-beds, and the fossil remains of those antediluvian forests from which coal is formed, that lie deep beneath the surface of the soil in the greater portion of the State of Pennsylvania, and several other of the North American States ; yet there have been indications of its presence hundreds of miles from any coal deposits. In these instances, however, it is supposed that there is a subterranean communication with the spot from some distant deposit. Indications of petroleum having been discovered, a machine termed a derrick, which, however, is a mere tall pyramid-shaped scaffolding about fifty feet high, ten feet square at the base, and some four feet at the top, is erected on the spot. On the top of this derrick is a pulley-wheel, over which passes a rope, and to the end of this rope are attached the heavy steel bars, and the drill for punching a six-inch ■hole down to whatever depth it may be necessary to “strike oil”—generally five or six hundred feet. A short distance off is a shanty engine-house, with an eight or ten horse power engine, which, by means of a lathe-band, drives a large wooden wheel under the derrick, and this wheel is connected, by a crank motion, with a stout bar of timber about sixteen feet long, balanced in the centre like a scale-beam. Thus, as the engine makes the wheel revolve, the wheel keeps the walking-beam going up and down at each end like a quick “ see-saw,” and the walking-beam is so made that it raises or lowers the rope with the tools that drill the hole till oil is struck, when, if the precious fluid does not flow of itself, the same motion of the beam that drills the hole pumps it up. Oil is not always found, even where the indications have been most promising; and occasionally, when it is found, apparently in large quantities, it fails, sometimes after having flowed freely for a few days. Sometimes wells that have suddenly “ given out ” begin to flow again in greater abundance than ever. Very often great expense is incurred in boring the earth where it has utterly failed to fulfil its promises of supplying oil. In fact, oil-boring, though the gains are immense when the borers are successful, is speculative in the extreme. Hence the continuous removals from one “ city,” where there has been a great flow of business, to another ; and hence the cause why, in the short space of four years, several cities have been built and have become almost deserted.

In allusion to this giving out of the oil-wells and desertion of the cities, the Times correspondent thus speaks of the aspect of the country around Cherry Run, a city and district that was for some time rich in oil-wells, though at the time of his visit the wells had been almost deserted, and most of the inhabitants had migrated to a more hopeful spot: “ Some wells are still flowing, and the dirty liquid, like thin molasses, comes gurgling, with regular pulsation, into the vats, giving off a gas-like steam. Some are pumping salt water out of new wells, and pumping it out hopefully too; for the rule is, ‘No brine, no oil.’ Some are removing the water from wells that have been drowned out by floods. Some are drilling new wells; but the great majority stand idle and abandoned. In fact, the first thing that strikes the visitor is the silence which, comparatively speaking, prevails throughout a region filled with such unexampled evidences of bold and pushing energy. Partly this desertion is caused by the damage to the wells by the floods to which I have alluded, partly by the fact that some of the wells are pumped out, and more than all by the fact, that every one is mad and wild to join the new *rush ’ at Pithole City, where the wells are teeming with a hitherto almost continuous abundance. These, at least, are the causes assigned for the comparative desertion of Cherry Run. Whether they are sufficient to account for the abandonment of what is said to be valuable property, I cannot say, though I doubt it, and almost incline to the opinion that Cherry Run has for the present been pumped out, or that at least men find more profitable wells in Pithole. It is, however, very hard to judge on these matters, because Hie oil mania baffles all ordinary rules by which mens* conduct may be judged. It is not alone speculation, but in all its features the purest gambling that ever was adopted wholesale by any mercantile community. If it were done with cards, or even on time-bargains, ninetenths <rf those engaged in it, like the Puritan New Englanders, would draw off ; but, as the venture has to be carried out .at a good deal of personal fatigue and some unpleasant privation, it is thought legitimate, though the whole thing is • heads or tails/ * double or quits,* from first to last. . . . .. ~ It is ‘double or quits * with, the man who has lost ten thousand dollars in bad wells why he should not risk the other ten thousand dollars in a venture that may make him an oil-prince or a teamster. In this strange country either position would be accepted as a matter of course, though naturally the former ismuch preferred and more generally rimed . (To be