Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1864-12-17

later, the lands that are bought with
view to still further speculation, can find
no purchasers, and must be actually work
ed, often by parties who did not expect to
incur the chances of actual Development
of the territory. There is no doubt what
ever that great fortunes can be made by
the purchase of undeveloped lands at the
high prices at which they ara held by spec
ulators. The oil fever, however, ragos so
high that many are tempted to buy on very
illusory representations. Lands laid out on
water colored drawings, with pumping and
flowing wells carefully put down, with
blue and red ink, at appropriate distances,
with the great backbone Of Petroleum, Oil
Creek, mapped out with ali its vertebras
of farms and ribs ofcreeks and gdIlies run
ming into it, sre often very different from
the lands themselves. An inch ortWo- on
a map will often indicate the eontiguity @
fancy stocks to your thousand dollar-a-dsy
or ten-thousand-s-day well on Oil Creek.
Miles of hills and swamps have to be trav-
ersed, often, in reaching these same lands.
Eager speculators have, therefore, frequent
ly bought water-colored lands with beauti-
full ravines and gullies traversing them
and bewitching oil wells dotted down in
the immediate vicinity, which have subse-
quently and on examination, proved to be
upland regions many miles from the real
at-present-oil-producing territories.
Our advice is, therefore, not to be gulled
by maps or the representations of news
paper correspondents hired for the pur-
pose of "setting up" certain oil lands,
which fancy spectators are anxio1s
to get rid of before the necessity Of
actual experiment shall come upon them.
Let no man buy oil stocks merely on the
strength of maps and interested repFesen-
tations. Let him, on the contrary, make
scJusI exsmination, before he Wades in "
very deep into the oIeaginous waters. My
object is, in writing this letter, not to write
up any company, but to caution the
dssr, over-eredulOus, often-humbugged
public to have their wits about
them and then buy oil lands and
oil wells and make their fortunes.
The oil business is undoubtedly in its in
fancy even now. Every day discovers new
territory as good as the old. The proba-
bility is that the fountain heads of oil are
not yet tapped, and that there may be
other millionaires beside.t those to whom Oil.
Greek has given cash and fame. There is
music hid magic in the name of Venango
county to many an individual but there Is
reason to believe that not only in Venango,
but in Crawford and Greene and Clarion
and other counties in pennsylvania, beside
the vast regions of Western Virginia,
Southern Ohio, and Eastern Kentucky,
oil is to be found in abundant quantities.
Many places heretofore dead to the oil
business are waking up. Cleveland,
Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, snd numer-
Gus other places, large and small, are send
ing delegations hitherward, so that at no
time since the opening Of the oil regions,
have there BEEN so many newcomers, so
many men Of wealth, here prospecting, so
much land bought and sold and leased, SO
many wells going down or SC. much oil OBJ
.ained, as at this present time. Nor win
ter, nor poor hotels, nor wretehed travelling
facilities, nor horrible sleeping places, nor
mud, nor snow, nor any other
cause, can dsmpen the ardor of the men
who are focking to these parts.
J.H. R.