The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-24 00:00:00

The Oil Regions of Pen.nsylvanla.

(From the Times' Correspondent)
BLOOD FARM, CHERRY RUN, Oct 7.
Before I venture any further on my account of
these extraordinary regions I must give a rough and
very brief explanation of the way in which the oil
is got to the surface of the earth, without which
some terms which I shall have to use would be un-
intelligible to the majority of readers. When it has
been decided to sink a well the first operation is to
erect a derrick of rough timber over the spot. This
derrick is so called, like every other machine for
hoisting things in air, after a very experienced and
celebrated hangman, who once flourished here be-
fore the States were independent. The derrick used
at oil wells, however, bears not the slightest re-
semblance to the form which its name here implies.
It is a mere tall pyramid-shaped scaffolding, about
50ft. high, 10ft. square at the base, and some 4ft.
at the top—very similar, in fact, to the scaffoldings
used in erecting tall chimneys, or like the frame-
work of a wooden steeple to a little viilage church.
At the top of the derrick' is a pulley wheel, over
which passes a rope, and to the end of this rope are
attached the heavy steel bars and drill for punching
a six-inch hole down to whatever depth may be
necessary to strike oil—generally 500 ft. or 600 ft.
At a short distance from the derrick is a shanty en-
gine-house, with an eight or ten horse power en-
gine, which by means of a lathe band drives a large
wooden wheel under the derrick, and this wheel is
connected by a crank motion with a stout bar of
timber about 16 feet long, balanced in the centre
like a scale beam. Thus, as the engine makes the
wheel revolve, the wheel in turn keeps the walking-
beam going up and down at each end hie a quick
" see-saw," and the walking-beam is so made to
raise and lower the rope with the tools that drill
the hole till oil is struck, when, if the precious
liquid does not flow, the same motion of the beam
pumps it up. Of course as the tools are withdrawn
an iron tubing lines the hole they have made to
keep out the salt water, and its ingress up the tube
from the bottom is prevented by a leather bag filled
with linseed, the linseed in which swells immensely
as the water gets at it, and effectually closes the
aperture in that direction. Anything more tough
or apparently more efficient than the whole appa-
ratus it would be difficult to imagine. Everything
except the engine is got from the forest around, and
the cost of sinking a well seldom exceeds £l,OOO,
labour included. When to the derrick has been
added a little row of black, greasy. wooden vats as
large as small gasometers the whole machinery of
an oil well, which may be worth $2,000,000 or
$3,000,000, is complete. In this outline I have not
ventured on the difficulties of sinking wells, on the
utter uncertainty of finding oil, or, when found in
its greatest abundance, the utter uncertainty of its
continuance for a single week. All those extra-
ordinary contradictions which make this land and
its oil yield a puzzle to geologists—an enigma which
baffles alike the most scientific theory and the most
extensive practical experience—must be discussed at
another time. It was essential, however, to explain
what a derrick and drill were—what, in fact, was
the machinery of an oil well—to make myself un-
derstood in what I shall have to say hereafter.
The track from Oil City to this place is the great
route along which all the products of its own region
and those of Tar Farm, Blood Farm, Egbert Farm,
and Pithole City incessantly pass. This road, if
such it may be called, is almost beyond description.
I saw a fair share of mud at Balaklava, but for
varying depths, varying tenacities, varying colours,
and universally nauseous odour there is nothing
to compare with the mud along this path. It is as
omnipresent as the derrick or the smell of gas, and
more it would be difficult to say in fewer words,
----dark black mud in Oil Creek, dark green, fetid-
smelling, repulsive mud in the vicinity of flowing
wells, yellow mud up Cherry Run, and so on in ever-
varying tints and depths, but in any case mud
everywhere. In some places, -where it is so deep as
to be dangerous for horse or cart to venture, huge
masses of stone have been rolled from the hills above
to fill the gap, though this rough practice is, as
might be expected, scarcely an improvement for
traffic purposes. For a couple of miles or so above
Oil City such a path as I have spoken of winds round
the base of the hills, which shut in a narrow valley,
once beautifully picturesque, and the solitude of
which four years ago was only broken at night by
the deer from the hills coming down to drink at the
stream. Below on the river great rafts of oil are
being floated down, while against the current horses
up to their shoulders in water are wearily dragging
the scows full of empty barrels. Everywhere areseen
teams with their loads floundering through the mud,
some hopelessly embedded and stopping scores be-
hind, some overturned or with horses thrown down
among the wreck of stones pitched in to fill the mud
gaps. Suddenly at a narrow turn the valley widens,
and the track leads down the ford across " OilCrik,"
as it is called—a wide, shallow, swift mountain
stream, or rather river, which in fine weather the
horses can easily ford, but which after rain is impas-
sable. Riding carefully through this you come upon
an open flat-bottomed valley, and the like of the
scene it presents is not to be witnessed in any other
part of the world, save perhaps atPithole City. The
forest has been roughly cleared away, and where the
trees could not be felled they have been girdled, and
are white and dead, and the whole line of the clearing
on either side of the creek is simply one continuous
mass of derricks for three miles or more. They rise
as thick as the masts of our vessels on the Thames;
each has its engine house, each its big tanks—all
brown, all greasy, all emitting the same repulsive
odour. The mud comparatively ceases now, except
in deep runs or gullies ; but the road is not less diffi-
cult, for under beams or over beams one has to wind
carefully between the derricks, or cautiously skirt
the edge of huge wooden vats, some 12 or more feet
deep, sunk in the ground and filled with the ever-
present oil. Some wells are flowing, and the dirty
liquid, like thin molasses, comes gurgling with regu-
lar pulsations into the vats, giving off a gaslike steam.
Some are pumping salt water out of new wells, and
pumping it out very hopefully, too ; for the rule is,
"no brine, no oil." Some are removing the water
from wells that have been drowned out by the flood
of last May, of which I shall have more to say by-
and-bye. Some are drilling now wells, but the great
majority stand idle and abandoned. In fact, the first
thing which strikes the visitor is the silence which,
comparatively speaking, prevails throughout a region
filled with such unexampled evidences of bold and
pushing energy. Partly this desertion is caused by
the damage to the wells during the great floods to
which I have alluded, partly to the fact that some
of the wells are pumped out, and, more than all, to
the fact that every one is mad and wild to join the
"new rush" at Pithole City, where the wells are
teeming with a hitherto almost continuance abund-
ance. These, at least, are the causes assigned for
the comparative desertion of Cherry Bun. Whether
they are sufficient to account for the abandonment
of what is said to be valuable property I cannot say,
though I very much doubt it, and almost incline to
the opinion that Cherry Run has for the present
been pumped out, or that at least men find more
Profitable wells in Pithole. It is, however, very
hard
to judge on these matters, became the oil
mania baffles all ordinary rules by which men's con-
duct be
may judged. It is not alone speculation,
but is in all ita features the purest gambling that
ever was adopted wholesale by any mercantile com-
munity. If it was done with cards or even on
time bargains, nine-tenths of those engaged in it,
like the Puritan New Englanders, would draw off ;
but, as the venture has to be carried out at a good
deal of personal fatigue and some unpleasant priva-
tion, it is thought legitimate, though the whole
thing is " heads or tails," " double or quits," from
first to last.
That many along Cherry Run have migrated to
Pithole is likely enough. 1 rode between hundreds
of yards of silent derricks, where tools., engines,
lathes, and all, had been left idle as they stood when
the tanks were full of oil as the well had last
pumped them, and where the rows of once busy
office-doors were shut and padlocked, with a rough
chalk notice, without date or hour, of " Gone to
Pithole." It was curious to see these streets of
greasy wooden towers left alone, to see the idle
wells flooding up water by fits and starts as the gas
came up with a gurgling hiss, to read the endless