OIL WELLS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume II, Issue 138, 21 February 1874, Page 2

OIL WELLS.

A few years ago men thought and spoke only of gold. They awoke and slept again ; but their dreams, waking or sleeping, were of the rich yellow ore of California or Australia, of the nuggets from these fields and all the good things these nuggets-—if obtained—could procure. Now, in a quiet locality in Pennsylvania, into which the gold mania never penetrated, a mania as engrossing has taken possession of men’s minds. Oil is everything. It is the subject of conversation in the market place, and by the hearth, and men rush to the spot where it is to be found, eager to try their fortunes in an oil speculation. The Scotchman is there with his shrewd, sagacious head, calculating cooly and soberly all the risks and probable profits of the concern before he embarks in it; and, there too, is a native of the Emerald Isle, in his - red shirt and canvass trousers, willing to be servant to any one who will hire him. Next we see the few, with piercing black eye and marked features, bearing unmistakable proof of his Hebrew origin and characteristics—gold his god, and gold his curse ; boasting himself in the riches of the Gentiles, and ready to start in the pursuit of gain, no matter how or where. Here, too, is the eager dollar-loving Yankee, ready to plunge into every undertaking—your go-ahead man, who runs in every race, and often wins the prize. But time would fail to enumerate the different nations represented in that mass of applicants for wealth, all bent on that one object, no matter at what cost it can be procured. Then there are waggons continually passing to and fro ; some returning laden with barrels full of the precious liquid, others taking empty vessels to the wells to be filled, with the continual puff of the steam engine, pumping up the oil from the hidden depths, and the cheapening and bargaining of buyers and sellers, whose tongues are heard above the noise of the engines, all combining to give an air of liveliness and interest to the

scene. , In the western part of Pennsylvania, oil springs have been long known, and the oleaginous liquid had been procured floating on the surface of the streams which flow through these regions; but it was never considered of much value until Mr. E. L. Drake conceived the idea of boring for it, in the autumn of 1859. At Titusville, in Crawford County, Pennsylvania, he sank a shaft through twentynine feet of earth, and the same depth of rock, and procured a daily supply of twenty-five or thirty barrels as a reward of his labor. No sooner had the news of this wonderful discovery been made public, than men rushed to the spot to witness the sight; many came resolved to try their fortunes at a ” bore” also, thinking beneath the ground in that region lay a lake of oil, where fortunes were to be secured more swiftly thau in fields of gold. Some rented land in the neighborhood, at enormous prices; others obtained leases ou condition that if the “bore” were successful, the tenant should pay, as rent, one third, or one half, of tne profits. As might be supposed, leases of this kind were sometimes a good speculation, and sometimes a failure ; for in tliis, as in other lotteries, the wheel of fortune did not turn up prizes alike to all its votaries—far more frequently blanks instead ; still, many who abandoned their lot for want of money to carry out their operations, doubted not that oil could have been obtained had they only been able to bore deeper into the rock. It is supposed that about thirty miles around Titusville, 5,000 wells, have been begun within the last two years, though probably not more than 200 have been at all successful. Wells have been found in Ohio, Virginia, and Canada, as well as in Pennsylvania, which promise large supplies. The well is formed by drilling into the rock, and the size of the hole made is generally between three and five inches in diameter. The oil is found at different depths ranging from seventy to four hundred feet. In most cases the oil requires to be pumped from the Well, and a steam engine is used for this purpose ; but at times it flows spontaneously, and in remarkably large quantities. When a hole is first opened, it has been known to yield fifty or a hundred barrels per day, decreasing after a time to twenty or thirty, the large discharge at first being caused - it is supposed—by the pressure of gas, which ceases to operate in the same measure as the reservoir empties itself.

In Virginia at a depth of a hundred feet, a vein of oil was encountered, which came up with such force that the tools were pushed out of the well, and the stream of oil sprang out and fell again in showers, deluging the country around with the liquid. fn vain the workmen tried to cover the orifice with n plank — the violence of the stream forced it from their hands; at last, taking the sinker, they wrapped it in rugs and weighed it down till barrels could be procured, one of which was filled in a minute.

Large quantities of salt water are raised with the oil; the water runs off by a hole in the bottom of a large vat; the oil passes through a smaller one, and from thence flows into barrels. Several refineries have been erected in the oil regions, and the refiners are making a proportional profit with the well owners. It costs about five cents, a gallon to refine it; the loss in the process is fifteen per cent. Tn the process it parts with from twenty to forty per cent, of its original elements. New York and Boston are the principal markets for it at present, The merchants have agents at the wells, who purchase the oil as fast as it is extracted, and considerable competition goes on amongst the purchasers. It is worth about ten dollars at the well. Rich oil, when in its crude state, is of a reddish brown color, and as thin as water; it is also very inflammable, but by the process of refining, it is freed from the explosive element. When burning, it gives a clear light —scarcely inferior to gas ; one lamp, consuming a half-pint in ten hours or so, will yield a light as good as six ordinary candles; it has a light odour of naptha when burning, but the smell is not unpleasant. An American paper, referring to the wells, says “As to the origin of the oil, there are many theories and conjectures. Its geological position is beneath the bituminous coal beds, and above the anthracite. The petroleum is probably derived from the natural separation of the bituminous from the carbonaceous portion of the coal, which, oozing upwards, from faults and fissures in the coal seam, drains off between the strata, and follows the inclination of the latter until it reaches the surface in some denuded portion of the coal bed. This gradual oozing over extensive surfaces, yields a large supply of liquid, and it is supposed that any one sinking a well deep enough to reach a thick stratum of petroleum will obtain an abundant and constant yield. The oil has already become a profitable article in American commerce, and has Keen received with much favor in Europe. Nature has given to that wonderful land a treasure hid in its soil, which we can only obtain by much labor. We have our oil works and chemical processes whereby we extract tliis valuable liquid from vegetable and animal matter, whilst in that western land men have to pierce through the solid rock, and it flows forth in copious streams, to make the wheels of machinery run smoothly along, and to Hght up the backwoodsman’s home in the distant clearings, gladdening his cot with the cheering ray which enables him to see the face of his wife and children as they gather round him in the winter evenings.” (Communicated.)