The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sketches in Crude-oil, by John J. McLaurin This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: Sketches in Crude-oil Some accidents and incidents of the petroleum development in all parts of the globe Author: John J. McLaurin Release Date: December 6, 2016 [EBook #53672] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES IN CRUDE-OIL *** Produced by KD Weeks, Chris Curnow and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber’s Note: The positions of most illustrations have been adjusted slightly to fall on paragraph breaks. In most cases, any text included in the illustrations has been presented as a caption. Those images which are employed at the opening of each chapter sometimes incorporate the first character in the illustration itself, but sometimes simply give that character in a large font. Normally the latter have a caption. This version follows the appearance of the text as well as possible. Minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected. Please see the transcriber’s note at the end of this text for details regarding the handling of any textual issues encountered during its preparation. The cover image has been created, based on title page information, and is added to the public domain. John J. McLaurin. SKETCHES IN RUDE-OIL SOME ACCIDENTS AND INCIDENTS OF THE PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENT IN ALL PARTS OF THE GLOBE WITH PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS By JOHN J. MCLAURIN, Author of “A Brief History of Petroleum,” “The Story of Johnstown,” Etc. “Write the vision * * * that he may run that readeth it.”—Habakkuk 11:2 “I heard a song, a mighty song.”—Ibsen “Was it all a dream, some jugglery that daylight might expose?”—N. A. Lindsey “I will a round unvarnish’d tale deliver.”—Shakespeare SECOND EDITION—REVISED AND ENLARGED HARRISBURG, PA. PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR 1898 Copyrighted, 1896 Copyrighted, 1898 By JOHN J. McLAURIN Dedication Transcription “He cometh unto you with a tale which holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney-corner.”—SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. “What is writ is written, would it were better.”—SHAKESPEARE. v vi INTRODUCTION Life is too short to compile a book that would cover the subject fully, hence this work is not a detailed history of the great petroleum development. Nor is it a mere collection of dry facts and figures, set forth to show that the oil business is a pretty big enterprise. But it is a sincere endeavor to print something regarding petroleum, based largely upon personal observation, which may be worth saving from oblivion. The purpose is to give the busy outside world, by anecdote and incident and brief narration, a glimpse of the grandest industry of the ages and of the men chiefly responsible for its origin and growth. Many of the portraits and illustrations, nearly all of them now presented for the first time, will be valuable mementoes of individuals and localities that have passed from mortal sight forever. If the reader shall find that “within is more of relish than of cost” the writer of these “Sketches” will be amply satisfied. vii SECOND EDITION The first edition of five-thousand copies having been exhausted, the second is now issued. The oil-development is progressive, hence numerous illustrations and much new matter are added. Hearty thanks are returned hosts of friends and the public generally for kindly appreciation of the work. Perhaps something not thanks may be due the lonely few who “care for none of these things.” This will likely end the pleasant task of reviewing petroleum’s wide field and “living the old days over again,” so it is fitting to pray, with Tiny Tim, “God bless us every one.” “No man likes mustard by itself.”—BEN JONSON. “He has carried every point who has mixed the useful with the agreeable.”—HORACE. viii CONTENTS. Pages CHAPTER I. THE STAR IN THE EAST 1-14 Petroleum in Ancient Times—Known from an Early Period in the World’s History—Mentioned in the Scriptures and by Primitive Writers—Solomon Sustained—Stumbling Upon the Greasy Staple in Various Lands—Incidents and Anecdotes of Different Sorts and Sizes—Over Asia, Africa and Europe. CHAPTER II. A GLIMMER IN THE WEST 15-24 Numerous Indications of Oil on this Continent—Lake of Asphaltum—Petroleum Springs in New York and Pennsylvania— How History is Manufactured—Pioneers Dipping and Utilizing the Precious Fluid—Tombstone Literature—Pathetic Episode-Singular Strike—Geology Tries to Explain a Knotty Point. CHAPTER III. NEARING THE DAWN 27-40 Salt-Water Helping Solve the Problem—Kier’s Important Experiments—Remarkable Shaft at Tarentum—West Virginia and Ohio to the Front—The Lantern Fiend—What an Old Map Showed—Kentucky Plays Trumps—The Father of Flowing Wells—Sundry Experiences and Observations at Various Points. CHAPTER IV. WHERE THE BLUE-GRASS GROWS 43-58 Interesting Petroleum Developments in Kentucky and Tennessee—The Famous American Well—A Boston Company Takes Hold—Providential Escape—Regular Mountain Vendetta—A Sunday Lynching Party—Peculiar Phases of Piety —An Old Woman’s Welcome—Warm Reception—Stories of Rustic Simplicity. CHAPTER V. A HOLE IN THE GROUND 61-80 The First Well Drilled for Petroleum—The Men Who Started Oil on Its Triumphant March—Colonel Drake’s Operations —Setting History Right—How Titusville was Boomed and a Giant Industry Originated—Modest Beginning of the Greatest Enterprise on Earth—Side Droppings that Throw Light on an Important Subject. CHAPTER VI. THE WORLD’S LUBRICANT 83-114 A Glance at a Pretty Settlement—Evans and His Wonderful Well—Heavy Oil at Franklin to Grease all the Wheels in Creation—Origin of a Popular Phrase—Operations on French Creek—Excitement at Fever Heat—Galena and Signal Oil-Works—Rise and Progress of a Great Industry—Crumbs Swept Up. CHAPTER VII. THE VALLEY OF PETROLEUM 117-154 Wonderful Scenes on Oil Creek—Mud and Grease Galore—Rise and Fall of Phenomenal Towns—Shaffer, Pioneer and Petroleum Centre—Fortune’s Queer Vagaries—Wells Flowing Thousands of Barrels—Sherman, Delamater and “Coal-Oil Johnnie”—From Penury to Riches and Back—Recitals that Discount Fairy-Tales. CHAPTER VIII. PICKING RIPE CHERRIES 157-170 Juicy Streaks Bordering Oil Creek—Famous Benninghoff Robbery—Close Call for a Fortune—City Set Upon a Hill— Allemagooselum to the Front—Cherry Run’s Whirligig—Romance of the Reed Well—Smith and McFate Farms— Pleasantville, Shamburg and Red Hot—Experiences Not Unworthy of the Arabian Nights. CHAPTER IX. A GOURD IN THE NIGHT 173-188 The Meteoric City that Dazzled Mankind—From Nothing to Sixteen-Thousand Population in Three Months—First Wells and Fabulous Prices—Noted Organizations at Pithole—A Foretaste of Hades—Excitement and Collapse—Speculation Run Wild—Duplicity and Disappointment—The Wild Scramble for the Almighty Dollar. CHAPTER X. UP THE WINDING RIVER 191-210 Along the Allegheny from Oil Creek—The First Petroleum Company’s Big Strike—Ruler of President—Fagundas, Tidioute and Triumph Hill—The Economites—Warren and Forest—Cherry Grove’s Bombshell—Scouts and Mystery Wells— Exciting Experiences in the Middle Field—Draining a Juicy Section of Oildom. CHAPTER XI. A BEE-LINE FOR THE NORTH 213-230 ix x The Great Bradford Region Looms Up—Miles of First-Class Territory—Leading Operators—John McKeown’s Millions— Many Lively Towns—Over the New-York Border—All Aboard for Richburg—Crossing into Canada—Shaw’s Strike— The Polar Region Plays a Strong Hand in the Game of Tapping Nature’s Laboratory. CHAPTER XII. DOWN THE ZIG-ZAGGED STREAM 233-256 Where the Allegheny Flows—Reno Contributes a Generous Mite—Scrubgrass Has a Short Inning—Bullion Looms Up with Dusters and Gushers—A Peep Around Emlenton—Foxburg Falls into Line—Through the Clarion District—St. Petersburg, Antwerp, Turkey City and Dogtown—Edenburg Has a Hot Time—Parker on Deck. CHAPTER XIII. ON THE SOUTHERN TRAIL 259-290 Butler’s Rich Pastures Unfold Their Oleaginous Treasures—The Cross-Belt Deals Trumps—Petrolia, Karns City and Millerstown—Thorn Creek Knocks the Persimmons for a Time—McDonald Mammoths Break All Records—Invasion of Washington—Green County Has Some Surprises—Gleanings of More or Less Interest. CHAPTER XIV. MORE OYSTERS IN THE STEW 293-308 Ohio Calls the Turn at Mecca—Macksburg, Marietta, Lima and Findlay Heard From—West Virginia Not Left Out— Volcano’s Early Risers—Sistersville and Parkersburg Drop In—Hoosiers Come Out of Their Shell—Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, Texas and California Help Flavor the Petroleum Tureen. CHAPTER XV. FROM THE WELL TO THE LAMP 311-342 Transporting Crude-Oil by Wagons and Boats—Unfathomable Mud and Swearing Teamsters—Pond Freshets— Establishment of Pipe-Lines—National-Transit Company and Some of Its Officers—Speculation in Certificates— Exchanges at Prominent Points—The Product That Illumines the World at Various Stages of Progress. CHAPTER XVI. THE LITERARY GUILD 345-380 Clever Journalists Who Have Catered to People of the Oil-Regions—Newspapers and the Men Who Made Them—Cultured Writers, Poets and Authors—Notable Characters Portrayed Briefly—Short Extracts from Many Sources—A Bright Galaxy of Talented Thinkers—Words and Phrases that Will Enrich the Language for all Time. CHAPTER XVII. NITRO-GLYCERINE IN THIS 383-406 Explosives as Aids to the Production of Oil—The Roberts Torpedo Monopoly and Its Leaders—Unprecedented Litigation —Moonlighters at Work—Fatalities from the Deadly Compound—Portraits and Sketches of Victims—Men Blown to Fragments—Strange Escapes—The Loaded Porker—Stories to Accept or Reject. CHAPTER XVIII. THE STANDARD OIL-COMPANY 409-426 Growth of a Great Corporation—Misunderstood and Misrepresented—Improvements in Treating and Transporting Petroleum—Why Many Refineries Collapsed—Real Meaning of the Trust—What a Combination of Brains and Capital has Accomplished—Men Who Built Up a Vast Enterprise that has no Equal in the World. CHAPTER XIX. JUST ODDS AND ENDS 429-452 How Natural Gas Played Its Part—Fire and Water Much in Evidence—Changes in Methods and Appliances—Deserted Towns—Peculiar Coincidences and Fatalities—Railroad Episodes—Reminiscences of Bygone Scenes—Practical Jokers— Sad Tragedies—Lights and Shadows Intermingle and the Curtain Falls Forever. PORTRAITS. Name Page Abbott, William H. 320 Adams, Rev. Clarence A. 112 Albee, J. P. 187 Allen, Col. M. N. 344 Ames, Gov. Oliver 46 Anderson, George K. 116 Andrews, Charles J. 388 Andrews, Frank W. 116 Andrews, William H. 389 Angell, Cyrus D. 111 Archbold, John D. 420 Armor, William C. 374 Babcock, John 442 Barber, F. H. 373 Barnsdall, Theodore 217 Barnsdall, William 60 Bates, Joseph 32 Baum, William T. 82 Bayne, S. G. 9 Beatty, David 191 Beers, Henry I. 165 Bell, Edwin C. 368 Benninghoff, John 157 Bishop, Coleman E. 344 Bissell, George H. 60 Bleakley, Col. James 87 Bloss, Henry C. 344 Bloss, William W. 344 Boden, Frederick 218 Booth, J. Wilkes 104 Borland, James B. 349 Bowen, Frank W. 359 Bowman, J. H. 344 Boyle, Patrick C. 357 Brewer, Dr. F. B. 60 Brigham, Samuel P. 350 Brown, Samuel Q. 149 Brownson, Marcus 258 Buchanan, George 22 Cady, Daniel 70 Cain, Col. John H. 90 Campbell, John R. 323 Carnegie, Andrew 443 Carroll, Reuben 229 Carroll, R. W. 229 Carter, Col. John J. 222 Chambers, Wesley 150 Clapp, Edwin E. 194 Cochran, Alexander 102 Cochran, Robert L. 346 Colman, Moses J. 104 Cone, Andrew 354 Cone, Mrs. Andrew 354 Conver, Peter O. 351 Cornen, Peter P. 165 Crane, Rev. Ezra G. 112 Crawford, Dr. A. W. 240 Crawford, John P. 107 Name Page Crawford, William R. 82 Criswell, Robert W. 366 Crocker, Frederick 214 Crossley, David 60 Cummings, Capt. H. H. 266 Delamater, George W. 123 Delamater, George B. 42 Dennison, David D. 371 Densmore, Emmett 446 Densmore, James 446 Densmore, Joel D. 446 Densmore, William 446 Dewoody, J. Lowry 88 Dimick, George 261 Dodd, Levi 87 Dodd, Samuel C. T. 423 Dougall, David 259 Drake, Col. Edwin L. 60 Eaton, John 448 Eaton, Rev. S. J. M. 376 Egbert, Dr. A. G. 60 Egbert, Dr. M. C. 133 Emery, David 60 Emery, Lewis 217 Evans, James 82 Fassett, Col. L. H. 449 Fertig, John 127 Fertig, Samuel S. 121 Fisher, Frederick 317 Fisher, Henry 317 Fisher, John J. 317 Forman, George V. 326 Forst, Barney 285 Frew, William 32 Fox, William L. 243 Funk, Capt. A. B. 127 Galey, John H. 254 Galloway, John 180 Goe, Bateman 218 Grandin, Elijah B. 202 Grandin, John L. 202 Gray, Samuel H. 377 Greenlee, C. D. 285 Griffith, W. E. 283 Grimm, Daniel 82 Guffey, James M. 250 Guffey, Wesley S. 250 Haffey, Col. J. K. 371 Hanna, J. Lindsay 87 Harley, Henry 320 Harley, Stephen W. 368 Hasson, Capt. William 116 Henry, Col. James T. 344 Hess, Michael Edic 295 Heydrick, Jesse 191 Name Page Hoover, Col. James P. 82 Hopkins, Edward 323 Hughes, S. B. 196 Hulings, Marcus 246 Hunter, Jahu 266 Hunter, Dr. W. G. 36 Hyde, Charles 60 Irvin, Samuel P. 370 James, Henry F. 82 Janes, Heman 142 Jennings, Edward H. 293 Jennings, Richard 261 Johns, Walter R. 344 Johnston, Dr. Frank H. 377 Jones, Edward C. 373 Jones, Capt. J. T. 217 Kantner, H. Beecher 349 Karns, Stephen D. 261 Kern, Thomas A. 371 Kerr, J. Melville 379 Kier, Samuel M. 30 Kirk, David 217 Koch, George 448 Lambing, James M. 254 Leckey, Robert 218 Lee, John H. 246 Leonard, Charles C. 362 Lock, Jonathan 77 Lockhart, Charles 32 Longwell, W. H. 344 Mapes, George E. 366 Martin, Z. 79 Martindale, Thomas 440 Mather, John A. 175 Metcalfe, L. H. 344 Miller, Charles 96 Miller, T. Preston 447 Mitchell, Foster W. 149 Mitchell, John L. 149 Mitchell, J. Plumer 399 Moorhead, Joseph 373 Morton, Col. L. M. 344 Munson, William 391 Murray, F. F. 366 Muse, James B. 349 Myers, J. J. 239 McCalmont, S. P. 348 McCargo, David 443 McClintock, Homer 357 McCray, James S. 137 McCullagh, W. J. 357 McDonough, Col. Thos. 113 McDowell, Col. Alex. 20 McKeown, John 221 McKinney, J. Curtis 273 xi McKinney, John L. 273 McLaurin, John J. Front McMullan, W. S. 90 McMullen, Justus C. 374 Needle, George A. 368 Negley, John H. 369 Nesbitt, George H. 261 Neyhart, Adnah 202 Nicklin, James P. 84 Noble, Orange 42 O’Day, Daniel 323 Oesterlin, Dr. Charles 432 Osmer, James H. 236 Painter, William 88 Persons, Charles E. 371 Phillips, Isaac N. 135 Phillips, John T. 135 Phillips, Thomas M. 135 Phillips, Charles M. 135 Phillips, William 116 Phillips, Fulton 375 Phipps, Porter 166 Place, James M. 366 Post, A. G. 443 Plumer, Frederick 246 Plumer, Warren C. 344 Ponton, John 362 Pratt, Charles 421 Prentice, Frederic 109 Rattigan, P. A. 369 Raymond, Aaron W. 87 Reed, William 162 Reineman, Isaac 447 Reisinger, Col. J. W. H. 350 Reno, Gen. Jesse L. 234 Rial, Edward 88 Roberts, Col. E. A. L. 382 Roberts, Dr. Walter B. 382 Rockefeller, John D. 409 Rouse, Henry R. 116 Rowland, James W. 300 Rumsey, George 239 Satterfield, John 258 Seep, Joseph 335 Shamburg, Dr. G. 167 Shannon, Philip M. 198 Shaw, John 226 Sheakley, Gov. James 182 Sheasley, Jacob 82 Showalter, J. B. 445 Sibley, Edwin H. 377 Sibley, Joseph C. 96 Simonds, Joseph W. 104 Simpson, Robert 359 Siviter, William H. 357 Smiley, Alfred W. 181 Smiley, Edwin W. 347 Smiley, J. Howard 347 Smith, George P. 90 Smith, J. Harrison 347 Smith, William A. 61 Smithman, John B. 447 Snell, Alfred L. 374 Snowden, Rev. N. R. 20 Speechly, Samuel 432 Staley, W. H. 210 Stevens, William H. 442 Stewart, Samuel 169 Stone, Charles W. 206 Stuck, Col. Edward H. 357 Swan, B. E. 101 Tarbell, Franklin S. 116 Tarr, James S. 292 Taylor, Frank H. 357 Taylor, Hascal L. 258 Taylor, O. P. 223 Thompson. William A. 392 Thomson, Frank 442 Thropp, Miss Amelia 354 Titus, Jonathan 65 Truesdell, Frank W. 366 Tyson, James 362 Vanausdall, John 116 Vandergrift, Capt. J. J. 326 Vandergrift, T. J. 209 Watson, D. T. 446 Watson, Jonathan 60 Watson, Lewis F. 206 Welch, Philip C. 359 Wenk, Jacob 350 Wetter, Henry 252 Whitaker, Albert P. 346 Whitaker, William S. 346 White, Charles E. 357 Wicker, Charles C. 360 Williams, Samuel L. 364 Yewens, Rev. Harry L. 345 Young, Samuel 370 Young, W. J. 269 Youngson, A. B. 443 Youngson, J. J. 443 Zane, John P. 116 Zeigler, H. C. 300 Zeigler, Col. Jacob 370 ILLUSTRATIONS. Page Oil-Wells in India 6 View in Oil City, Pa., after the flood, March 17, 1867 26 Baku, Russia and Bakany Views 14 Notable Wells on Oil Creek in 1861-2-3 42 Map of Venango County 59 Early Operators on Oil Creek 60 Group Picture—Maj. W. T. Baum, Jacob Sheasley, Henry F. James, James Evans, W. R. Crawford, Daniel Grimm, Col. Jas. P. Hoover 82 Miller & Sibley’s Prospect Hill Stock Farm, Franklin, Pa. 115 Group Picture—John Vanausdall, G. K. Anderson, Wm. Phillips, F. S. Tarbell, F. W. Andrews, Capt. Wm. Hasson, Henry R. Rouse, John P. Zane. D. W. Kenney’s Allemagoozelum City Well No. 2 116 Petroleum Centre, 1894 131 Wells on Benninghoff Run, Venango Co., Pa., in 1866 156 General View of Pithole in August, 1895 172 Page Parker Oil Exchange in 1874 190 Up the Allegheny River 212 Views at St. Petersburg, Edenburg and Other Places 232 Karns City, Greece City, Petrolia, 1873; Group of Hascal L. Taylor, Marcus Brownson and John Satterfield 258 Group Picture—Richard Jennings, S. D. Karns, George Nesbit and George Dimick 261 Armstrong Well 281 Views on the Tarr Farm, Oil Creek, in 1863-6. Refinery and Oil-Wells at Russia and Baku 292 Pond Freshet at Oil City, March, ’63 310 A Cluster of Pioneer Editors 344 Group Picture—F. F. Murray, Frank W. Truesdell, R. W. Criswell, James M. Place and George E. Mapes 366 Group Picture—Col. J. K. Haffey, D. A. Dennison, Thomas A. Kern and Charles F. Persons 371 Well Flowing Oil After Torpedoing 382 Standard Building, 26 Broadway, N.Y. 408 THE BAD BOY’S IDEA OF ADAM’S I. THE STAR IN THE EAST. Petroleum in Ancient Times—Known from an Early Period in the World’s History—Mentioned in the Scriptures and by Primitive Writers—Solomon Sustained—Stumbling Upon the Greasy Staple in Various Lands—Incidents and Anecdotes of Different Sorts and Sizes—Over Asia, Africa and Europe for the Stuff. “The morning star in all its splendor was rising in the East.”—Felix Dahn. “Alone in the increasing darkness * * * it is a beacon light.”—Disraeli. “It were all one that I should love a bright particular star.”—Shakespeare. “The years that are gone roll before me with their deeds.”—Ossian. “Oil out of the flinty rock.”—Deuteronomy xxxii: 13. “And the rock poured me out rivers of oil.”—Job xxix: 6. “Will the Lord be pleased with * * * ten-thousands of rivers of oil?”—Micah vi: 7. “I have myself seen pitch drawn out of the lake and from water in Zacynthus.”—Herodotus. “The people of Agrigentum save oil in pits and burn it in lamps.”—Dioscorides. “Can ye not discern the signs of the times?”—St. Matthew xvi: 3. etroleum, a name to conjure with and weave romances around, helps out Solomon’s oft- misapplied declaration of “No new thing under the sun.” Possibly it filled no place in domestic economy when the race, if the Darwinian theory passes muster, sported as ring-tailed simians, yet the Scriptures and primitive writers mention the article repeatedly. Many intelligent persons, recalling the tallow-dip and lard-oil lamp of their youth, consider the entire petroleum-business of very recent date, whereas its history goes back to remotest antiquity. Naturally they are disappointed to find it, in various aspects, “the same thing over again.” Men and women in the prime of life have forgotten the flickering pine-knot, the sputtering candle or the smoky sconce hardly long enough to associate rock-oil with “the brave days of old.” This idea of newness the host of fresh industries created by oil-operations has tended to deepen in the popular mind. Enjoying the brilliant glow of a modern argand-burner, double-wicked, silk-shaded, onyx- mounted and altogether a genuine luxury, it seems hard to realize that the actual basis of this up-to-date elegance has existed from time immemorial. Of derricks, drilling-tools, tank-cars, refineries and pipe-lines our ancestors were blissfully ignorant; but petroleum itself, the foundation of the countless paraphernalia of the oil-trade of to-day, flourished “ere Noah’s flood had space to dry.” Although used to a limited extent in crude-form for thousands of years, it was reserved for the present age to introduce the grand illuminant to the world generally. After sixty centuries the game of “hide-and- seek” between Mother Earth and her children has terminated in favor of the latter. They have pierced nature’s internal laboratories, tapping the huge oil-tanks wherein the products of her quiet chemistry had accumulated “in bond,” and up came the unctuous fluid in volumes ample to fill all the lamps the universe could manufacture and to grease every axle on this revolving planet! The demon of darkness has been exorcised from the gloomy caverns of old to make room for the modern angel of light. Science, the rare alchemist which converts the tear of unpaid labor into a steam-giant that turns with tireless arm the countless wheels of toil, lays bare the deepest recesses of the past to bring forth treasures for the present. The capital invested in petroleum in this country has increased from one-thousand dollars, raised in 1859 to drill the first well in Pennsylvania, to six-hundred-millions. It is just as easy to say six-hundred-million dollars as six-hundred-million grains of sand, but the possibilities of such a sum of money afford material for endless flights of the imagination. Thirty- thousand miles of pipe-lines handle the output most expeditiously, conveying it to the seaboard at less than teamsters used to receive for hauling it a half-mile. Ten-thousand tank-cars have been engaged in its transportation. Seventy-five bulk- steamers and fleets of sailing-vessels carry refined from Philadelphia and New York to the most distant ports in Europe, Africa and Asia. “Astral Oil” and “Standard White” have penetrated “wherever a wheel can roll or a camel’s foot be planted.” In Pennsylvania, South-eastern Ohio and West Virginia thirty-five-million barrels have been produced and eight- thousand wells drilled in a single year. Add to this the results of operations in North-eastern Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and California, and it must be acknowledged that petroleum is entitled to the chief seat in the synagogue. Edward Bellamy may, perhaps, be imitated profitably and pleasantly in this connection by “Looking-Backward.” Looking forward is the proper kink, Smooth as skating in an icy rink, In one’s planning how to fill a chink At manifold times and places; But for winning in a thoughtful think, Past and present joining with a link Guaranteed to wash and never shrink, Looking backward holds four aces. Precisely how, why, when, where and by whom petroleum was first discovered and utilized nobody living can, and nobody dead will, tell anxious inquirers. The information has “gone where the woodbine twineth,” to join the dodo, the megatherium, the 1 2 FALL. Well, this beats the deuce! ichthyosaurus and the “lost arts” Wendell Phillips embalmed in fadeless prose. An erratic Joe-Millerite has traced the stuff to the Garden of Eden in a fashion akin to the chopping logic of the Deacon’s “Wonderful One-Horse Shay.” Hear him: “Adam had a fall?” “Sure as death and taxes.” “Why did he fall with such neatness and dispatch?” “Maybe he took a spring to fall.” “Naw! Because everything was greased for the occasion! Unquestionably the only lubricant on this footstool just then was the petroleum brewed in God’s own subterranean stills. Therefore, petroleum figured in Eden, which was to be demonstrated according to Hoyle. See?” There is no “irrepressible conflict” between this reasoning, the version of the Pentateuch and the idea of Peck’s Bad Boy that “Adam clumb a appul-tree to put coal-oil onto it to kill the insecks, an’ he sawed a snaik, an’ the oil made the tree slippy, an’ he fell bumpety-bump!” What a heap of trouble would have been avoided if that pippin had been soaked in crude-oil, that Eve might turn up her nose at it and give the serpent the marble heart! As Miss Haney expresses it: “O Eve, little Eve, if you only had guess’d Who it was that tempted you so, You’d have kept out of mischief, nor lost your nice home For the sake of an apple, I know.” Other wags attribute the longevity of antediluvian veterans to their unstinted use of petroleum for internal and external ailments! Had medical almanacs, patent nostrums and circus-bill testimonials been evolved at that interesting period, the oleum-vender would have hit the bull’s-eye plump in the center. Guess at the value of recommendations like these, with the latest accompaniment of “before-and-after” pictures in the newspapers: Land of Nod, April 1, B. C. 5678.—This is to certify that I keep my strength up to blacksmith pitch by frequent applications of Petroleum Prophylactic and six big drinks of Benzine Bitters daily. Lifting an elephant, with one hand tied behind me, is my favorite trick. Sandow Tubal-Cain. Mt. Ararat, July 4, B. C. 4004.—Your medicine is out of sight in our family. It relieved papa of an overdose of fire-water, imbibed in honor of his boat distancing Dunraven’s barge on this glorious anniversary, and cured Ham of trichina yesterday. Mamma’s pug slid off the upper deck into the swim and was fished out in a comatose condition. A solitary whiff of your Pungent Petroleum Pastils revived him instantly, and he was able to howl all night. Shem & Japheth. Somewhere in Asia, Dec. 21, B. C. 4019.—Your incomparable Petroleum Prophylactic, which I first learned about from a college chum, is a daisy-cutter. Thanks to its superlative virtues, I have lived to be a trifle older than the youngest ballet-girl in the “Black Crook.” I celebrated my nine-hundred-and-sixty-ninth birth-day by walking umsteen miles before luncheon, playing left- tackle with the Y. M. C. A. Foot-ball Team in the afternoon and witnessing “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”—two Topsys, two Markses, two Evas, two donkeys and four Siberian Bloodhounds—in the evening. Next morning’s paper flung this ticket to the breeze: “For Mayor of Jeroosalum We nominate Methoosalum.” By sticking faithfully and fearlessly to your unrivaled elixir I expect to round out my full thousand years and run for a second term. Refer silver-skeptics and gold-bug office-seekers to me for particulars as to the proper treatment. Grover Linger Longer Methuselah. Pleasant Valley, Oct. 30, B. C. 5555.—I just want to shout “Eureka,” “Excelsior,” “Hail Columbia,” “E Pluribus Unum,” and give three cheers for your Kill-em-off Kerosene! Both my mothers in-law, who had bossed me seventy decades, tried a can of it on a sick fire this morning. Their funeral is billed for four o’clock p. m. to-morrow. Send me ten gallons more at once. Brigham Young Lamech. Isles of Greece.—I defy the Jersey Lighting to knock me out while your Benzine Bitters are in the ring. “A good thing; push it along.” Sullivan Ajax. Leaving the realm of conjecture, it is quite certain that the “pitch” which coated the ark and the “slime” of the builders of Babel were products of petroleum. Genesis affirms that “the vale of Siddim was full of slime-pits”—language too direct to be dismissed by hinting vaguely at “the mistakes of Moses.” Deuteronomy speaks of “oil out of the flinty rock” and Micah puts the pointed query: “Will the Lord be pleased with * * * ten thousands of rivers of oil?” To the three friends who condoled with him in his grievous visitation of boils the patriarch of Uz asserted: “And the rock poured me out rivers of oil.” Whatever his hearers might think of this apparent stretch of fancy, Job’s forecast of the oleaginous output was singularly felicitous. Evidently the Old-Testament writers, whose wise heads geology had not muddled, knew a good deal about the petroleum situation in their day. A follower of Voltaire was accustomed to wind up his assaults on inspiration by criticising these oily quotations unmercifully. “Could anything be more absurd,” he would ask, “than to talk of ‘oil from a flinty rock’ and ‘rocks pouring forth rivers of oil?’ If anything were needed to prove the Bible a fool-book from start to finish, such utterances would settle the matter beyond dispute. Rocks yielding rivers of oil cap the climax of ridiculous nonsense! Next they’ll want folks to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale, hair and hide and breeches. Bah!” Months and years passed away swiftly, as they have a habit of doing, and the sturdy agnostic continued arguing pluckily. At length tidings of oil-wells flowing thousands of barrels of crude reached him from William Penn’s broad heritage. He 3 4 came, he saw and, unlike Julius Cæsar, he surrendered unconditionally. Remarking, “This beats the deuce!” the doubter doubted no more. He revised his opinions, humbly accepted the gospel and professed religion, openly and above-board. Hence the petroleum-development is entitled to the credit of one notable conversion, at least, and the balance is on the right side of the ledger, assuming that a human soul outweighs the terrestrial globe in the unerring scales of the Infinite. Can they be wrong, who think the stingy soul That grudges honest toil its scanty dole Not worth its weight in slaty, sulphur coal? Whether petroleum, which literally signifies “rock-oil,” be of mineral, vegetable or animal origin matters little to the producer or consumer, who views it from a commercial standpoint. In its natural state it is a variable mixture of numerous liquid hydro-carbons, holding in solution paraffine and solid bitumen, or asphaltum. The fountains of Is, on the Euphrates, were familiar to the founders of Babylon, who secured indestructible mortar for the walls of the city by pouring melted asphaltum between the blocks of stone. These famous springs attracted the attention of Alexander, Trajan and Julian. Even now asphaltum procured from them is sold in the adjacent villages. The commodity is skimmed off the saline and sulphurous waters and solidified by evaporation. The ancient Egyptians used another form of the same substance in preparing mummies, probably obtaining their supplies from a spring on the Island of Zante, described by Herodotus. It was flowing in his day, it is flowing to-day, and a citizen of Boston owns the property. Wells drilled near the Suez canal in 1885 found petroleum. So the gay world jogs on. Mummified Pharaohs are burned as fuel to drive locomotives over the Sahara, while the Zantean fount whose oil besmeared “the swathed and bandaged carcasses” is purchased by a Massachusetts bean-eater! Yet victims of “that tired feeling” turn to namby-pamby novels of the Laura-Jean-Libby brand for real romance! “For truth is strange, stranger than fiction.” Asphaltum is found in the Dead Sea, the supposed site of Sodom and Gomorrah, and on the surface of a chain of springs along its banks, far below the level of the ocean. Strabo referred to this remarkable feature two thousand years ago. The destruction of the two ill-fated cities may have been connected with, if not caused by, vast natural stores of this inflammable petroleum. The immense accumulations of hardened rock-oil in the center and on the banks of the sea were oxidized into rosin-like asphalt. Pieces picked up from the waters are frequently carved, in the convents of Jerusalem, into ornaments, which retain an oily flavor. Aristotle, Josephus and Pliny mention similar deposits at Albania, on the shores of the Adriatic. Dioscorides Pedanius, the Greek historian, tells how the citizens of Agrigentum, in Sicily, burned petroleum in rude lamps prior to the birth of Christ. For two centuries it lighted the streets of Genoa and Parma, in northern Italy. Plutarch describes a lake of blazing petroleum near Ecbatana. Persian wells have produced oil liberally for ages, under the name of “naphtha,” the descendants of Cyrus, Darius and Xerxes consuming the fluid for its light. The earliest records of China refer to petroleum and small quantities have been found in Thibet. An oil-fountain on one of the Ionian Islands has gushed steadily for over twenty centuries, without once going on a strike or taking a vacation. Austria and France likewise possess oil-springs of considerable importance. Thomas Shirley, in 1667, tested the contents of a shallow pit in Lancashire, England, which burned readily. Rev. John Clayton visited it and wrote in 1691: “I saw a ditch where the water burned like brandy. Country-folk boil eggs and meat in it.” Near Bitche, a small fort perched on the top of a peak, at the entrance of one of the defiles of Lorraine, opening into the Vosges Mountains-a fort which was of great embarrassment to the Prussians in their last French campaign—and in the valley guarded by this fortress stand the chateau and village of Walsbroun, so named from a strange spring in the forest behind it. In the middle ages this fountain was famous. Inscriptions, ancient coins and the relics of a Roman road attest that it had been celebrated even in earlier times. In the sixteenth century a basin and bath for sick people existed. No record of its abandonment has been preserved. In the last century it was rediscovered by a medical antiquarian, who found the naphtha, or white petroleum, almost exhausted. Nine years ago Adolph Schreiner died in a Vienna hospital, destitute and alone. Yet he was the only son of a man known in Galicia as “the Petroleum King” and founder of the great industry of oil-refining. The father shared the lot of many inventors and benefactors, increasing the world’s wealth untold millions and poverty-stricken himself in his last days. Schreiner owned a piece of ground near Baryslaw from which he took a black, tarry muck the peasants used to heal wounds and grease cart-axles. He kneaded a ball from the slime, stuck a wick into it and a red flame burned until the substance exhausted. This was the first petroleum-lamp! Later Schreiner heard of distillation, filled a kettle with the black earth and placed it on the fire. The ooze boiled over and exploded, shivering the kettle and covering the zealous experimenter with deep scars. He improved his apparatus, produced the petroleum of commerce and sold bottles of the fluid to druggists in 1853. He drilled the first Galician oil-well in 1856 and built a real refinery, which fire destroyed in 1866. He rebuilt the works on a larger scale and fire blotted them out, ruining the owner. Gray hairs and feebleness had come, he ceased the struggle, drank to excess and died in misery. His son, from whom much was expected, failed as a merchant and peddled matches in Vienna from house to house, just as the aged brother of Signor Blitz, the world-famed conjuror, is doing in Harrisburg to-day. Dying at last in a public hospital, kindred nor friends followed the poor outcast to a pauper’s grave. “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.” 5 6 OIL IN SUMATRA. OIL-WELLS IN INDIA. Life’s page holds each man’s autograph— Each has his time to cry or laugh, Each reaps his share of grain or chaff, But all at last the dregs must quaff— The tombstone holds their epitaph. Around the volcanic isles of Cape Verde oil floats on the water and to the south of Vesuvius rises through the Mediterranean, exactly as when “the morning stars sang together.” Hanover, in Germany, boasts the most northerly of European “earth-oils.” The islands of the Ottoman Archipelago and Syria are richly endowed with the same product. Roumania is literally flowing with petroleum, which oozes from the Carpathians and pollutes the water-springs. Turkish domination has hindered the development of the Roumanian region. Southern Australia is blessed with bituminous shales, resembling those in Scotland, good for sixty gallons of petroleum to the ton. The New-Zealanders obtained a meager supply from the hill-sides, collecting carefully the droppings from the interior rocks, and several test-wells have resulted satisfactorily. The unsophisticated Sumatrans, whose straw-huts and squeaky music rendered the Javanese village at the Columbian Exposition a tip-top novelty, stick pipes in rocks and hills that trickle petroleum and let the liquid drop upon their heads until their bodies are sleek and slippery as an eel. Chauncey F. Lufkin, of Lima, Ohio, inventor of the “Disk Powers” that make oil-wells almost pump themselves, says it is funnier than a three-ringed circus to watch a group of half-clad girls and women, two-thirds of them carrying babies, taking turns at this operation. He has traveled through the oil-fields of Sumatra, India and Russia and his kodak has reproduced many odd scenes for the delectation of his friends. Two companies drilling in Java propose to find out all about its oil-resources as quickly as the tools can reach the decisive spot. Ultimately Java coffee may be tinged with an oily flavor that will tickle the palates of consumers and set them wondering how the new aroma escaped their notice so persistently. Verily, “no pent-up Utica confines” petroleum within the narrow compass of a nation or a continent. With John Wesley it may exultingly exclaim: “The whole earth is my parish,” or echo the Shakespearean refrain: “The world’s mine oyster.” J. W. Stewart, of Clarion, has been in Africa drilling for oil. An English syndicate is behind the enterprise and test-wells are to be bored in the goldfields on the southern coast. Stewart, who returned lately, says it is amusing to see the monkeys climb up a derrick and watch the drillers at work. Just how amused they will be, if the Englishmen strike a spouter that drenches the monkeys and the derrick, each must diagram for himself until the result of carrying the petroleum-war into Africa is decided. C. E. Seavill, since 1874 mining-and-land agent at Kimberley, in the diamond-fields of South Africa, has organized a company with seventy-five-thousand dollars capital to operate at Ceres, eighty miles north of Cape Town. He has leased enormous tracts of land, which American experts pronounce likely to prove rich oil-territory, and the first well will be drilled at a spot selected by W. W. Van Ness, of New York, an authority on petroleum. Mr. Seavill spent years endeavoring to educate the people up to the notion that South Africa might be good for something besides gold and precious stones. A series of gushers in the Ceres district, big enough to discount yellow nuggets and sparkling gems, should be the fitting reward of his enterprise. Perhaps Heber’s missionary-hymn may yet start like this, when the Hottentots pose as oil-operators: From Java’s spicy mountains, From Afric’s golden strand, Come tales of oily fountains Roll’d up by the third sand. The Rangoon district of India long yielded four-hundred-thousand hogsheads annually, the Hindoos using the oil to heal diseases, to preserve timber and to cremate corpses. Birma has been supplied from this source for an unknown period. The liquid, which is of a greenish-brown color and resembles lubricating-oil in density, gathers in pits sunk twenty to ninety feet in beds of sandy clays, overlying slates and sandstones. Clumsy pots or buckets, operated by quaint windlasses, hoist the oil slowly to the mouth of the pits, whence it is often carried across the country in leathern bags, borne on men’s shoulders, or in earthern jars, packed into carts drawn by oxen. Major Michael Symes, ambassador to the Court of Ava in 1765, published a narrative of his sojourn, in which is this passage: “We rode until two o’clock, at which hour we reached Yaynangheomn, or Petroleum Creek. * * * The smell of the oil is extremely offensive. It was nearly dark when we approached the pits. There seemed to be a great many pits within a small compass. Walking to the nearest, we found the aperture about four feet square and the sides lined, as far as we could see down, with timber. The oil is drawn up in an iron-pot, fastened to a rope passed over a wooden cylinder, which revolves on an axis supported by two upright posts. When the pot is filled, two men take hold of the rope by the end and run down a declivity, which is cut in the ground, to a distance equal to the depth of the well. When they reach the end of the track the pot is raised to its proper elevation; the contents, water and oil together, are discharged into a cistern, and the water is afterward drawn through a hole in the bottom. * * * When a pit yielded as much as came up to the waist of a man, it was deemed tolerably productive; if it reached his neck it was abundant, and that which reached no higher than his knee was accounted indifferent.” Labor-saving machinery has not forged to the front to any great degree in the oil-fields of the East Indies. For the Burmese trade flat-boats ascend the Irrawaddy to Rainanghong, a town inhabited almost exclusively by the potters who make the earthen jars in which the oil is kept for this peculiar traffic. The methods of saving and handling the greasy staple have not changed one iota since John the Baptist wore his suit of camel’s-hair and curry-combed the Sadducees in the Judean wilderness. Progress cuts no ice beneath the shadows of the Himalayas, notwithstanding the missionary efforts of Xavier, Judson, Carey, Morrison and Duff. 7 8 GROUP OF NATIVE OIL-OPERATORS IN INDIA DOWN FROM THE HILLS. WOMEN IN JAPAN CARRYING OIL ON THEIR BACKS. S. G. BAYNE. CLASSIC GROUND OF PETROLEUM. Petroleum in India occurs in middle or lower tertiary rock. In the Rawalpindi district of the Panjab it is found at sixteen localities. At Gunda a well yielded eleven gallons a day for six months, from a boring eighty feet deep, and one two-hundred feet deep, at Makum, produced a hundred gallons an hour. The coast of Arakan and the adjacent islands have long been famed for mud-volcanoes caused by the eruption of hydrocarbon gases. Forty-thousand gallons a year of petroleum have been exported by the natives from Kyoukpyu. The oil is light and pure. In 1877 European enterprise was attracted to this industry and in 1879 work was undertaken by the Borongo Oil-Co. The company started on a large scale and in 1883 had twenty-four wells in operation, ranging from five-hundred to twelve-hundred feet in depth, one yielding for a few weeks one-thousand gallons daily. The total pumped from ten wells during the year was a quarter-million gallons; and in 1884 the company had to suspend payment. Large supplies of high-class petroleum might be obtained from this region, if suitable methods of working were employed. Japan also takes a position in the oleiferous procession allied to that of the yellow dog under the band-wagon. At the base of Fuji- Yama, a mountain of respectable altitude, the thrifty subjects of the Mikado manage a cluster of oil-pits in the style practiced by their forefathers. The mirv holes, the creaking apparatus and the general surroundings are second editions of the Rangoon exhibits. Yum-Yum’s countrymen are clever students and they have much to learn concerning petroleum. Twenty-one years ago a Japanese nobleman inspected the Pennsylvania oil-fields, sent thither to report to the government all about the American system of operating the territory. His observations, embodied in an official statement, failed to amend the moss-grown processes of the Fuji-Yamans, who preferred to “fight it out on the old line if it took all summer.” Two others followed on a similar mission in 1897. Fifty wells, from one thousand to eighteen hundred feet deep, are producing in the Echigo province of Japan. The largest flowed five-hundred barrels the first day, declining to eight or ten, the customary average. The sand is white and the oil is of two grades, one amber of 38° gravity, the other much darker and of 310 gravity. The methods of refining and transporting are of the rudest, women carrying the crude from the wells on their backs as squaws in North America tote their papooses. In 1874 S. G. Bayne, now president of the Seaboard Bank of New-York City, visited these oriental regions. The hard fate of the benighted heathen moved him to briny tears. They had never heard or read of “the annealed steel coupling,” “the Palm link,” the tubing, casing, engines and boilers the distinguished tourist had planted in every nook and corner of Oildom. With the spirit of a true philanthropist, Bayne determined to “set them on a higher plane.” His choicest Hindostanee persiflage was aired in detailing the advantages of the Pennsylvania plan of running the petroleum-machine. Tales of fortunes won on Oil Creek and the Allegheny River were garnished with scintillations of Irish wit that ought to have convulsed the listeners. Alas! the supine Asiatics were not built that way and the good seed fell upon barren soil. The story and, despite the finest lacquer and veneer embellishments, the experience were repeated in Japan. What better could be expected of pagans who wore skirts for full-dress, practiced hari-kari and knew not a syllable about Brian Boru? Their conduct was another convincing evidence of “the stern Calvinistic doctrine” of total depravity. The Japs voted to stay in their venerable rut and not monkey with the Yankee buzz- saw. “And the band played on.” Years afterwards two cars of drilling-tools and well-machinery were shipped to Calcutta and a couple of complete rigs to Yeddo—“only this and nothing more.” The genial Bayne attempted to square the account by printing his eastern adventures and sending marked copies of translations to the Indo-Japanese press. Doubtless the waste-basket received what the office-cat spared of this unusual consignment. Mr. Bayne began his prosperous career as an oilman by striking a snug well in 1869, on Pine Creek, near Titusville. He has written a book on Astronomy which twinkles with gobs of astral science Copernicus, Herschell, Leverrier, Proctor or Maria Mitchell never dreamed of. His unique advertisements have spread his fame from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Digest these random samples of originality worthy of John J. Ingalls: “We never make kite-track records; our speed takes in the full circle.” “The graveyards of the enemy are the monuments of our success.” “We never speak of our goods without glancing at the bust of George Washington which squats on the top of our annealed steel safe; a twenty-five cent plaster cast of George lends an atmosphere of veracity to a trade which in these days it sometimes needs.” “Abdul Azis, the late Sultan of Morocco, bought a cheap boiler to drill a water-well. It bu’st and he is now Abdul Azwas.” “We will never be buried with the ‘unknown dead’—we advertise.” “Our patent coupling is the precipitated vapor of fermented progress.” “The intellectual and æsthetic are provided for in consanguinity to their taste.” “Our conversational soloists never descend to orthochromatic photography in their orphean flights; they hug the shore of plain Anglo-Saxon and scoop the doubting Thomas.” “It will never do to shake a man because the lambrequins begin to appear on the bottom of his pants and he wears a ‘dickey’ with a sinker.” “The Forget-me-nots of to-day are frequently found the Has-beens of to-morrow.” “Credit is the flower that blooms in life’s buttonhole.” “Many a man who now gives dinner-parties in a Queen-Anne front would be nibbling his Frankfurter in a Mary-Ann back had we not given him a helping hand at the right moment.” The classic ground of Petroleum is the little peninsula of Okestra, jutting into the Caspian Sea. Extraordinary indications of oil and gas extend over a strip of country twenty-five miles long by a half-mile wide, in porous sandstone. 9 10