PETROLEUM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 78, 11 July 1910, Page 3

PETROLEUM.

A RECORD GUSIIER. -OLD FAITHFUL" i.\ OIL. In the entire history of the world's gieat oil fields there has never been an: other gusher as the Lakeview, which hurled itseli upward into public attenl,Uil _ihe famous 'Sunset-Alidw«ay liekl of California on the morning ox Jiiarcli io. From the day it was freed from its subterranean gas chambers until tlie present moment this oleaginous geyser has baliled every effort exerted to control it, and spouted into the air from 40,000 to 50,000 barrels of oil a day without a hint of diminution. Fully a million dollars' worth of the precious flow has been saved through the throwing up of earth dikes, while a fortune in commercial petroleum has been wasted through absorption into the ground and in spray blown away by the four winds. All idea of curbing the well so that the product might be utilised in the ordinary tame and leisurely manner has been abandoned. The problem of the moment is to corner a set of oil by conducting it into a temporary 5,000,000barrel reservoir, which is being scraped 'in the mesa with feverish haste by the Union Oil Company. The Lakeview is poorly named a gusher. It is "Old Faithful" without the Yellowstone marvel's mathematical habit of intermittency in spouting. The Lakeview is on the job every second of the day. The gusher is almost literally a leak in the biggest pipe ever buried m the underground oil conduit system, and the' plumber 'hasn't been born tUat can plug the leak. The Lakeview was bored by the Union Oil Company, together with private individuals owning interests in the vicinity. Nothing eventful marked the monotonous progress of the boring until the hard steel drill had penetrated to a depth of 2200 feet, and then everything happened at once.

A sudden hiss deep in the earth was followed by a fearful roar and the instant rending of tJhe supenstructure of the drilling apparatus. The astonished drillers caught one glimpse of the "ci<own box" catapulting ito the blue sky, only to be half drowned the next instant in black petroleum. Men in slickers fought a way through the viscid stuff'to work with pick and shovel in t'he construction ol a aam across a natural slough which was rapidly becoming a river of petroleum. Men in ordinary street clothing sacrificed their raiment to help throw up a big earth dyke, completely surrounding tihe gusher in a wide circle. Further down the slough another dam was thrown up with feverish haste to catoh the overHow of the first makeshift reservoir. From that date to this the flow has been diverted from one pool to another until over million and a-half gallons of oil are said to have been dammed up. The Union Company's reservoir will hold all the petroleum that can be spouted forth in the next three months at the present rate maintained by the gusher. All the time an average of 20,000 barrels a day lias been syphoned out of itJhe various pools and marketed.

The amount of the oil wasted will never be known, A fortune in the flow has soaked into the ground. Through the 'bursting one night of one of uhe dams 70,000 barrels are estimated to have been wasted in an hour's time. The loss ithrough the spray, due to the enormous pressure behind the torrent, has, even in the calmest days, been large. On windy days the country v miles around has been sprayed, ani» he Sunset-Midway field imay certainly be said to boast the world's largest landscape in oil. Greasewood bushes four miles away look as if they had been dipped in tar. The vicinity of the Lakeview is no place for a man witn uucream clothes.

On the thirty-fifth day of action the Lakeview celebrated its sucessful defiance of restraint by sending up a iorrent estimated at 55,000 barrels. The latest device to check the flow is a crib of heavy planks, weighted and anchored down, and about 20ft high about the derrick. This arrangement, it is hoped, will hold the oil in a smaller column and form a cushion tor the ascending column.

The goose that laid the golden egg was insignificant as a piece of income-pro-ducmc property in comparison with this California oil-gusher. The gusher spouts daily oil worth 50 centa a barrel just as it leaves the ground, and totalling in value 25,000 dollars or more. There is the same saddening accompaniment of speculative and swindling activity in Los Angeles and, San Fiancisco that has marked "every oil and mining boom in the past. -In ILos Angeles, "notably, the excitement has come almost to a calamity to the city. Real estate and other legitimate fields of investment have been deprived of hundreds of thousands of dollars, a great percentage of which might as well be thrown into the Pacific for all the go<?d it will ever bring those who have paid it into fake oil concerns. Money which should be going into the development of fertile agricultural lands is being paid at the rate of from 1000 dollars an acre and up for desert areas, which will never produce enough to pay a cent of dividend on the outlay for stocks.