Cleveland daily leader. [volume] ([Cleveland, Ohio]) 1865-1873, 1865-10-27

Just here it may interest some to read a
few brief notes of derricks and oil well
peculiarities. An oil well outfit consists
of engine, derrick, bull wheel, drilling ap-
paratus, driving pipe, and tubing. The
derrick, placed some thirty or forty feet
from the engine, is a pyramidal frame
structure, forty or fifty feet high, with a
square base of fifteen feet, the summit an
preaching APPOINT, where rests a pulley block
through which passes the strong rope used
in the work. A walking beam of heavy
timber plays on the 4" samson post mid
way between the engine house and derrick.
Each revolution Ofthe crank lifts and drops
the drilling tools, weighing about one
thousand pounds. First, the driving pipe
has to be put down to the rock. 1t is made
of cast-iron, usually one inch thick, five
inch aperture, and in lengths of nine feet.
A pile driver run by the engine and
bull wheel, sends the pipe down at each
blow, sometimes to the rock in a dav or
two, in harder localities in a week. Drill
ing then begins. Atlower end of the cable
are attached successfully the sinker,the lars,
the augur stem, and the centre bit, drill. or
chisel, the whole being of iron or steel. and
nearly thirty feet in length. The drill is
about thirty inches long, with a three-inch
face. 1t strikes from 80 to 40 blows a min
ute, and is kept turning round by the driller
to make the opening uniform and prevent
accidents to the tools. The rock is punched
out from n to six inches per hour, ac-
cording to hardness, the churning going
on day and night. The reamer takes the
place of the drill at intervals to smooth
and widen the Oritice to the required size.
The reamer is followed by the sand pump,
an iron or copper tube about five feet long,
with a valve which opens, takes in the
pulpy mass, and is then brought to the
surface. The work goes on till oil is
struck, or the indications warrant a test of
the well, or its abandonment as a dry
hole. If oil be found in supposed paving
quantity, the well is tubed with iron
tubes usually two inches in diameter, by
about fifteen feet long, the ends screwing |
of the first joint the chamber is
attached, a copper vessel containing the
pump valves. The well must also be seed
bagged to be pumped to advantage. A
leather bag filed with fax-seed is
made fast to a joint and sent down with
the tube to the required depth. The flax
seed swells and fills the vacant space be-
tween the tube and the rock stopping
and gas. The well flows, or pump
rods are inserted, made of wood with
ends screwed together, and attached to the
walking beam, when up comes the brine
Dr the oil, but more commonly both, the
in much larger proportion at the
outset. The cost of sinking and tubing
| well of five hundred feet is now some
even thousand dollars-at. the beginning
bout three thousand.
The characteristics of wells, flowing and
pumping, are varied and singular. Some
low still and steadily, others irregularly.
The Coquette at every ten seconds gave a
uccessiOn of sounds like the exhausts of a
mall steam engine; and the Wild Cat
nd Yankee give out sharp reports after
emaining silent for forty and twenty :
respectively. Others remain I
uiescent for some twenty hours in the ,
then break forth in a continuous flow
r a succession of belchings for two or
hree hours. The Dunn well stops Weld =
ng freely at noon, the pump bringing lit !
Ie but salt water the rest of the day. !
,hough petroleum from many of the wells 8
ONES out OF the earth very little above :
be freezing point, it is found to be warmer :
l winter than in summer, and yet the /.
7ells yield much less freely in winter !.
in the summer season. Oil wells are +
arometers. superintendent assert that
ley begin to slacken up a full day before !
I'D rains or snow storms, and pour out :
lore freely with the dawn of pleasant :
Theories about these phenome- \
are abundant, but like the origin of pc {
Earth still holds all in mystery. !.
the Dalzell Farm shaft may solve v
me of the erratic processes in this won a
erful laboratory of Nature. A part of q
Ie excusionists dismount for a brief rest y
I'd observation at Oil City, while others =
cd on to Reno. J. H. Y