Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1877-04-16
HOW PETROLEUM is FOUND.

The Pennsylvania petroleum is found
in sandstone formation fully 1000
feet below the lowest coal measures the
Bptler-eonnty oil bearing rock lying full
ly 800 feet below the level of the sea.
The general public entertain the idea
that it is the result of the distillation of
coal; but scientists and practical opera
tors deny any connection between the
coal and oil measures. Hitherto science
has offered but little light upon the orr
gin of rock oil, while operators have
given more attention TO Une processes Tor
extracting it from the earth than to the
investigation of the question as to how
it came there. There are but few facts
which will support any theory whatever,
and these point to product of the de-
composition of aquatic plants and ami
mails. as coal is the result of enormous
deposits of vegetation. Other authori-
ties have asserted that it is the result of
distillation in the earth's crust. AS yet
its origin is utterly undetermined.
In the winter of 1859 Colonel E.
L. Drake, of New Haven, Ct, started
an artesian well on an island in Oil
creek, small tributary of the Allegha-
ny river. A neighboring spring had for
long time given out about twenty bar
rels of petroleum each year, which had
been bottled and sold for medicinal pur-
poses under the name of "Seneca Oh"
1t was with view of increasing this
yield that the artesian we'll was started.
In the latter part of August, 1859, the
drill reached the oil bearing rock at a
depth of seventy-one feet, and resulted
in yield of over 1000 gallons per day.
For centuries the Indians of that section
had collected the oil from the creek by
spreading their blankets upon its sur
face, their labors being rewarded by
small lots, with which they mixed their
war paint or which they burned to illu-
mine their feasts or war dances. During
these centuries no effort had been made
to secure it in large quantities, and the
first one to drill for the product had
caused glut in the market by produc-
ing twenty-five barrels per day. But sub
sequent events showed that Colonel
Drake had builded greater than he knew.
, Its near resemblance to crude coal oil
the first product of the destructive
distillation of coal-led manufacturers
to subject petroleum to those same pro-
, cesses to which crude coal oil was sub
: jected in the manufacture of an illumin
ator, and in a day a demand for the pro
duct was created. From daily yielc
! of twenty-five barrels, $4,000 barrels
production has been reached and passed
From sales of fifty cent walls for corns
E chllblains and rhematism, transaction
: have enlarged to entire cargoes and art
e daily carried from our shores to every
part of the globe. From seventy on,
e feet-the depth of the initial effort-th
oil driller of to-day sinks shaft l,70t
t feet deep-nearly one third of mile
r Indeed some wells have been drilled t
t depth of nearly 5000 feet. Instead o
t twenty-five barrel "pumper," the oi
: operator has sometimes been rewarde,
by 5000 barrel "spouter," and on
well on the Dougherty farm, near Petro
}. liza, flowed 4,8OO barrels during the frs
d twenty-four hours. From product un
known among American exports, petrC
u leum arose in decade of years to th
= third position. being surpassed only b
# grain and cotton. Between the inceptio
t, of the industry (say lS60) and the be
e. ginning of the year just passed 1876
\ 1t has brought into the United STATE
ct more than $4OO, 100000 in gold-a
r most equal Gf the heavy premium Q