The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-12-24
OILY FACTS.
An Interesting Chapter ON Petroleum
The Origin of the Olea ginous Fluid.

the prOuuctiOn OF petroleum, crude ana
refined. We have already exported
$500, 900, 900 worth of it, according to
Prof. Ovens figures in the October num-
Der OF Ff0ser's Magazine, and the taxes
levied on it during the war Welded the
Government $10,000,000.
The greasy stuff lards the lean earth
in many lands. 1t is found in small
quantities in England. 1t has made
some sandy barrens in Austria far more
valuable than the finest farming land.
Hindostan yields nearly ], 200, 900 barrels
OF 1T every year. China contains depos-
its of it, but imports vast quantities from
the United States. British capital is
boring oil wells in Japan and New Zeal
and. In the New World it is found in
Peru and Ecuador, Nova Scotia and Can
ada, and it abounds in the United States.
1t was first obtained from surface wells
in the "frosty Caucasus" which thus
bellies its name by yielding the raw ma
terial of fire, light and heat. In the flu
ture, Russia will probably rival us in the
production of petroleum, as she does now
In that of grain.
The precious material was sore griev-
ance to its first discoveries in this coun-
try. 1t oozed into their salt wells and
spoiled the salt. Many such wells, aban-
doned on this account, have since been
reopened for the sake of the oil. The
first mention of petroleum in Pennsyl-
vania, according to the report of the
geological survey of that State, was in
letter of the commandment at Fort Du
Quesne, the intended goal of Braddock's
fatal march and the site of Pittsburgh,
to the Marquis de Montcalm, in 1850.
In that year, the commandant saw the
Seneca Indians perform some rites at
what is now Oil Creek, where they made
fire from the oil which had oozed out
of the ground. just a century from that
time, the first refinery was erected i'll
Pennsylvania by Samuel Kier. The
early settlers found on the shore of the
Allegheny River, near Pittsburgh, q
broad ledge of sandstone, across which a
film of oil sluggishly poured down into
the water. Job speaks of a rock that
poured ont rivers of oil " This one
was called "Slippery Rock" and has
given its name to one of the richest dis
tricts in the great interior basin where
oil wells abound.
In 1858, two New Workers leased 100
acres of land, containing natural oil
spring, in Venango County, Pa, and
began boring for oil. Aug. %, 1859,
their drill struck the stratum now known
as :" oil-sand rock" at depth of II feet
below the surface, and the pump brought
twenty-five barrels of petroleum per day
to the upper air. The well was sunk to
the second stratum GOO feet and yielded
more. In February, 1861, the third
stratum was reached, when the oil rose
spontaneously to the surface and over
flowed. Soon afterward another well,
400 feet deep, poured forth flood of
petroleum that filed 3, 800 barrels q
day. Then came the mad rush of specu-
lation. Farmers who had painfully ex-
tracted scanty subsistence from
sterile soil saw themselves enriched in
an instant. They woke up and found
themselves wealthy. A fourth stratum
of oil-sand rock was found. Hundreds
of wells went down. A forest of der
ricks studded the country. The bust
ness was enormously profitable at first
and is now very remunerative, although
crude oil, which rose from 10 cents u
barrel III 1861 to S14 in 1864, now
sells for only about $1.17. But science
has already multiplied maDy-fold the
uses of petroleum, and is still constantly
inventing new ones.
For long while the origin of the oil
was one of natures secrets. Theories of
various degrees of probability were adj
vanced. One sagacious person declared
that a vast school of whales had been
caught in shallow water, in prehistoric
times that earth had gradually formed
above them and that the diggers had
found the oil that had lain within these
carcasses A more reasonable theory
was that the oil was containedin coal and
that the pressure of superintendent
earth and rock had squeezed IL out of
the coal shales into the sandy beds be
low. The discovery of impervious belts
of solid rock between the coal and oil put
an end to this idea. Petroleum is the
product of sea weeds" the fat weed
that rots itself at ease on Lethe's wharf, "
as Shakespeare has it. 1he great oil
field is triangular, with the Alleghenies
as its base and Pittsburgh for its apex.
This was once an arm OF the sea, swarm
ing with marine vegetable life. The
plants with which 1t was filled were rich
in unctuous juices, which have since lain
in the oil-beds beneath the earth that
has replaced the water. Through these
changes" says Prof. Owen, the
weeds have come at last to cure a
rheumatism and help heal a cash ; to
hghS the feet of the night-wanderer and
guide the hand of the pale student pen.
ming his thoughts in the long dark hours;
to clothe the fair maiden in hues rivaling
those of lily and rose to stimulate the
inventive faculty and add wealth to the
communities of men of foremost race |;
and among them to supply, also, tools
to cozening tempter and to put power
into the hands of maddened denizens Of
breadless novels to spread the flames of
destruction through the palaces of
Kings" The last allusion is more in
telligible when we remember that the
petroleum of Pennsylvania burned the
palaces of Paris.
mi. Iii, n