The Sun.
London, England, 1865-11-10 00:00:00

The Oil Regions of Pennsylvannia•

(From the Special Correspondent of the Times.)

OIL Crry, Oct. 24.
Difficult to travel as are the roads of the oil regions
in the most favourable weather, they are all but
impassable during the rainy season and on the ap-
proach of winter. During the last few days there
has been a rapid accumulation of mud, and a large
party of excursionists from New York and other
cities have found to their cost that explorations in
the oil regions are not to be lightly undertaken, and
cannot be made without serious discomfort and an
exciting amount of risk and adventure. The coun-
try, too, at this time of the year is fast losing many
of its natural charms. The deep and varied tints
of the foliage are daily becoming more sombre and
uniform in their colour, and the leaves which still
cling tenaciously to the forest trees are comparatively
few in number. A visit to Oil City even now will,
however, be amply repaid to those who are desirous
of examining minutely into the strange phenomena
which are presented to view at this season of the
year. The frosts of winter which seal up the sources
of rivers, and which check the flow of water, also
lock up the oil in its mysterious recesses. The mer-
cury in the thermometer, the rise and fall of the
barometer, do not indicate with greater accuracy the
change in the weather than does the rate of supply
of the oil from the well. Strange and unaccountable
as is the source of the supply of petroleum, it is even
still more of a puzzle to account for the influence of
temperature upon the -yields of the wells. Thetheo-
ries which are laid down with more or less of dog-
matism on every subject in Petrolia are numerous
and irreconcilable in respect to the fluctuation of the
yield of oil, and there is not an explanation offered,
no matter how inconsistent with another, that is not
certain to be falsified by actual facts within a few hours
after it has been offered. A law of lawlessness prevails
here, which it is hopeless to attempt to understand
or explain. The daily experience of the petroleum
industry has a most destructive influence upon all
hitherto prevailing notions of natural philosophy.
Beneath the earth crust of Pennsylvania water flows
on the surface of oil, above the ground the relative
positions are changed ; fresh water lies above salt
water; brine mingles with oil ; and there is scarcely
a fact applicable to one well which will serve as a
guide for its neighbour. There is an amount of un-
certainty about all the operations connected with oil
sinking which to the individual is most annoying,
but which tested by the results in the aggregate
passes into absolute certainty. Nine men may fail,
but the tenth will win a prize that divided would be
a fortune for each. The freaks of those oil wells
which have been brought under my notice are very
curious, and it is not improbable that many of the
ventures which have been permanently abandoned,
and much of the loss that has been sustained in
seeking for oil, have resulted from temporary causes
only,and from some of those sudden and unexpected
results in which nature in her sportive mood seems
to love to indulge. In some of the wells the flow oil
will cease for 20 out of the 24 hours, and for the
remainder of the time it will belch out at irregular
intervals of a few minutes. Others of the wells work
short time of six hours, and that only at night ;
others, again, select midday as the hour for com-
mencing their labour; a third kind, as if solely for
the purpose of vexing its enterprising owner, will
supply for several hours in the day a constant yield
of salt water, then it will rest altogether, and the
hopes of the poor man who has ventured his all in
the undertaking will sink within him, and then,
when all seem dark and hopeless, the wells will
smile upon him, and pour a stream of oil in the
tanks, already full to the brim with the brine of a
few hours previously. The Wild Cat well is sulky
for 40 minutes at a time; it then spits forth a few
drops of the precious liquid, then sulks for 20
minutes, foams and spurts again, and then gives
forth the petroleum freely for about 10 minutes,
and again goes her round of sulks and sullenness as
before. The Wild Cat accompanies its yield of oil
by a succession of sharp reports, as though the
earth from the barrel
again, are quiet in their work, ut Many orcuum-nraa
and spurt as they discharge the oily fluid. Each
well has its own peculiar characteristics, which are
perfectly known to the attendants, and it is usual to
apply to them terms such as would be used in de-
scribing the qualities of a horse or a dog.
A well is " skittish," or "sulky ;" it is some-
times " fond," and often " clever ;" it is
" libel al," and sometimes " elegant," and not
unfrequently " real nice,"—a phrase which in
America appears to combine everything that
is good and desirable on this planet. Another
very striking feature in connexion with this lawless-
ness of supply of oil is the uncertainty as to its
precise locality. One instance brought to my know-
ledge was the case of an ever abundantly-flowing
well, the yield of which naturally excited the cupidity
of the owner of an adjoining piece of land. He ac-
cordingly commenced to bore within a few words of
the well in the hope that he, too, might tap the great
lake below, from which it was anticipated he would
obtain equally satisfactory results. Far down below
the depth of the yielding well the rival carried his
tubes, but no oil rewarded his labours. Selecting a
spot a few feet more distant, he tried again, but still
with the same result ; a third time he tried another

locality, and a third time a few drops only were ob-

tained, and the further prosecution of the work was
abandoned as hopeless. Again, two wells may•be

struck close to each other, and to all appearance
would derive their yield from a common source of
supply ; but the one well produces its thousands,
and the other only its score of barrels ; one of them
will flow by fits and starts, the other will give forth
a continuous stream ; one may run for years, the
other may " give out" in a week. On the other
hand, there are instances in which the experience
obtained is exactly the reverse of the above. One
great spring which yielded its 2,000 barrels per day
was reached successfully by a rival, who carried off
nearly the whole of the supply. But, curiously
enough, the manager of the first well found that by
Withdrawing one of his tubes he could arrest the flow
to his neighbour's tanks, and a similar discovery
was mado by the manager of the second well. Each
held a key to the treasures below, each was cogni-
zant of the power of the other to regulate or
stop the supply, and ultimately a treaty of peace
was signed by the belligerents, and the yield of the
two wells was shared in a proportion agreed upon.
In some cases small lagoons of rock-enclosed oil
is reached by different sets of tubes, and the sound
of the drilling of the one may be heard through the
tubes of the other ; but one only will draw the oil,
and the other will have brine or gas only as the
reward of his labour. The extent to which the

brine or salt water and the oil are found in common

is another of the seven wonders of Petrolia ; a score
at least of theories, more or less abstruse, showing
more or less of a superficial knowledge of the geolo-
gical structure of the place, but each and all op-
posed to one or more facts, are propounded as ac-
counting for this mixture of oil and water. It is

singularly amusing to hear the adventurers and

possessors of oil wells discuss with each other the

action o vast geological epochs, the formation
of limestone and conglomerates, and carbonaceous
ingredients, and to hear them enforce their argu-

ments by illustrations of wells in some particular
locality where the experience obtained was exactly
the opposite of that of some other well. It would
indeed be a valuable contribution to the science of

geology if some inquiry were set on foot by a com-
petent and able commission to collect facts and
data upon which reliance might be placed as a
means of arriving ultimately at some sound decision
respecting the origin, the conditions, and the extent
of this remarkable source of natural wealth. Such
an inquiry might result in showing that in certain
kinds of stratification petroleum might ber e fairly ex-
pected to be met with, and many psons would
then be induced to search for, and probably to find,
in other countries similarly valuable deposits of this
useful material. At the present season of the year
it would be most interesting to trace, if not the
effect, at least the coincidence, of a diminished yield
of oil with a falling temperature. The generally
received idea of the temperature of the earth

increasing in a certain ratio with the depth is not
supported by the experience of Petrolia, inasmuch_
as the oil brought up from the greatest depths
has a lower temperature than that obtained