The Express.
London, England, 1860-05-19 00:00:00

GREAT OIL DISCOVERIES IN WESTERN

PENNSYLVANIA.

Western Pennsylvania and a portion of Ohio
arc rife with excitement. The grand discovery of the age
is oil springs, The earth is bored end burrowed into in
every
of to pump out the subterranean fluid. The
price land has gone up, and the price of oil has not yet
come down. Fortunes are made—in imagination— by mul-
titudes, and farm work in forgotten, in the eager search for
hidden treasures. Men are anxious to buy, and loth to sell,
farms which a few months ago went begging for purchasers.
Venango county, Pennsylvania, boasts of nearly 10
w
ells" wells 'of oil already. Land is selling at from two to
three hundred dollars an acre. Oil has been discovered at
the mouth of Big Sandy Creek, and wherever it is found or
guessed to exist, the soil instantly trebles or quadruples in
value. "Oil Creek" has become at once more famous
and attractive than the streams of Pactolus. or the
golden rivers of California. Pike's Peak has grown stale,
sad Fraser River is forgotten. Men turn to the El Dorados
of oil at their very doors, and turn up their noses at golden
ramous, of remote and inexhaustible wealth. One well
yields 18 barrels of oil per day, another DS, and the great
well at Crosby, which has been sunk to the depth of 181
feet, yields 90 barrels per day. This last it is shrewdly
supposed must have struck the jugular vein of the oil
region, and is drawing on its richest fountains. One men, a
blacksmith, in Franklin, Pennsylvania, who bored his own
well, has been (dewed 100,000 for it. The Franklin
Company have bored one well 314 feet deep, and have
found oil in sufficiect abundance to pay, but are
going deeper, in order to hit the great vein struck
by the Crosby well. The boring machines used are very
simple, and are driven by steam power. One bore on the
Allegheny struck • rock only two feet below the surface,
and on the first entrance the oil rose to the depth of flee
or six inches above the rock, abd 82 gallons were dipped
out immediately. There are no lees than 200 wells now
in progress in Pennsylvania, and in • few weeks it is esti-
mated that there will he 1,000. The excitement is in-
creasing rapidly, but has not reached its climax. In
Franklin there la not a merchant or lawyer who is not
engaged in the oil business. All ranks of men are pervaded
by the oil fever, and the (Armen particularly have become
almost infatuated, in some cases mortgaging their farms
at 2 per cent, per month to procure money to be invested
in oil wells. Strangers are flowing in, hotels are
crowded, the degas are all full to overflowing, and
vehicles of every sort are in demand to convey the
" prolpectors" fur oil about the country. The oil which is
found is the species variously known as naphtha, coal oil,
petroleum, Seneca oil, end rock oil. It has long been a
familiar fact that this oil exuded from the earth in various
parts of the world, and becomes by exposure darker and
thicker is substance. In Pennsylvania it used to be found
in wells bored for salt in the Allegheny river, where it was
considered a nuisance on account of the villanoua odour.
Being lighter than water it floats, rising rapidly to the sur-
face whenever it is struck by the anger. Inflammable
gases flow out of it in abundance, which closely resembles
the gas manufactured from coal in the retorts of pa works.
The principal market for the oil is New York, where it is
shipped, to be distilled and purified. The smell is pungent
end -disagreeable, nor has any method yet been discovered
by which it can be deodorised. —Cincinnati Coistmaelial.

ALLIES= EMBEZZLEMENT BY A CORMISCIAL TRA-
VELLER—At the Liverpool police court esterday, James
Frame, an elderly and respectably d man, waebsought
up, charged with misappropriating about 7701., the property
of his employers, Meagre liellewell and Co., Intha•rubber
merchants, of Liverpool. The case was very complicated,
and the prisoner, us the absence of his solicitor, contended
that the amount which he was accused of embezzling
would scarcely cover the mount which was due to him by
Mr. Hellewell in the shape of commiasions and services
which he had tendered to that gentleman. Mr. Raffles
liberated the prisoner os finding two sureties of 501. each,
and inggeoted that, should an interview take place between
Frame and hie employers, there would possibly be a mutual
arrangement come to which might make further legal pro-
ceedings unnecemary.
SlNtit LAR CHAWJE.—A rather singular case was
investigated by the Sunderland magistrates on Thursday.
A tradesman named Taylor owed another named Frost a
sum of money, and calling at his shop threw down the in-
voice, and asked his creditor to receipt it. This having
been done, Taylor took up the receipt and carried it sway
without paying the money. He was thereupon chargeil
with stealing the docwnent, and the bench were called upon
to decide whether this taking of the receipt was a felony.
It was contended for the defence that the invoice was
, Taylor's own, and that the receipt stamp became his, too,
,as emu se it was affixed to the invoice. The bench appeared
' to think that the stamp in this particular instance was
neither "goods" nor "chattels," according to the meaning
of the act, and they, therefore, dismissed the caw—New-
castle Chronicle.

The Hamburg and American screw steamer
&souls left Southampton yesterday for New York, She
took out marl? 700 passengers, and about 1,300 tom of
=She alio too: ont hiantlus 'burg mails and a mall
eh ship mail for the United atmion
EA drertisement.)—lioLiowaVe PILLS AND OINT-
NEWT —Exerebe your udgmena—lree purifying both the solids
and fluids composing the human body : for resulattor the tune-
tiou natural to each corporeal organ . for strengthening digeetion
and Invigorating the nervous system, the powers of Holloway's
remedies have been acknowledged for the last quarter of a cen-
tury. They are composed of the lined behave without admix-
ture with any mineral or poisonous ingredient , consequently the
am of Holloway's purity ins prepanetiona while wonderfully
erelent in subduing Movie, can never act wronerivor do vile
chief to the weakest eon/dilution. No well-conducted household
should be without a supply of these excellent fang)) neediesenesta
at this 'emu') of the year. when the blood and body generally
mace especially regatta *lsamu*.