Morning appeal. [volume] (Carson City, Nev.) 1877-1906, 1879-10-23
MORNING APPEAL.
..GCT0BEk 2?. 1879
PETROLEUM.


ment or wilder speculation, than did the dis
covery of petroleum in Pennsylvania. Com
panies sprang up with heavy capital, money
was invested freely, and stocks sold at fabu-
lous prices, and gamblers in them made
large fortunes now and then. Managers
were sent out at heavy salaries, wells
were sunk and towns grew up,
almost like Jonahs gourd. Machinery
utterly unit for the work was shipped by the
train load, land not worth dollar an acre
was sold as high as ten thousand, and we
preserve as a curiosity, Cancelled check for
81, 900 paid for a half acre lot, which pro-
duced Just $25 in oil, which was stolen from
the ground by some nsighbor. For miles
along the margin of the Allegheny ri yer, Oil
creek, Cherry creek and other tribGtares and
even on sand banks in the river bed, derrlcks
stood in forests, and engine houses pulled
smoke from ten thousand chimneys. Wells
along Cherry run were sunk within ten and
twenty feet of each other, one perhaps rum
MING 200 barrels daily, and the next twenty
feet off, pumping not more than twenty.
Within five years of the discovery, two-thirds
of the companies were broken up; first, from
downright mismauagement and theft, and
next from non productiveness of property,
and lastly from surplus of oil on the market,
its various uses not being yet discovered.
Transportation was either in bulk, that IL,
in boats built like tanks, or i'll barrels The
tank cars were not used TILL five or six years
after the discovery, and we saw oil drawn
from the first pipe line ever laid, at the town
of Oleapois. The pipe was only eight or
ten miles long, and now fifteen years later,
the New York Sun sums up the business as
follows:
At moderate estimate there are 10000
gallons of petroleum running to waste every
day i'll the Mexican county (Penhsylvaala)
oil regions The tanks, with capacity for
several million barrels, are filled to overflow
ing The market is overstocked, and still
production goes on at the rate of at least 20,
600 barrels day, 5000 more than the pipe
lines can handle. New wells are going down
in all parts of the region. The price of oil Is
from % to 80 cents less than the cost OF pro
duction. The United and Tidewater pipe
lines have iron tankage for 3 900 900 barrels
of oil in this district Individual producers
and oil companies own tankage connected
with these Inns. The pipe lines take care
of the oil of these tank owners to the extent
OF their capacity. 1t is the small producers
who are losing the bulk of the oil. They
cannot afford to build tanks
What is known rs the general storage
capacity of the pipe lines is proportioned out
to these producers, but that tankage has been
;.l f,. al no t,
waste-down the hills and valleys of Mexican
county. The streams are literally rivers of
oil. Large quantities of petroleum are alb |
sorbed by the earth In marshy places the |
ground is mass of greasy mud, several
inches deep.
la some parts of the region the streams are |
damned and the oil collected in large ponds |
at places as far distant possible from
derricks and buildings. These ponds are |
set on fire daily. Thus large quantity of
the waste oil is disposed of. 1t is not I'M
common for fires to be communicated to
these combustible rivers by sparks from
locomotives. Some times they fired by
persons and tramps. Derricks and
other property have been destroyed by these
fires, resulting in losses of thous
ands of dollars. All efforts to limit the pro-
ducton of oil and stop this great waste have
DDluc YEARS dSO INC olILlC o1aIO vi
affairs existed in the lower oil region
Rivers of oil flowed from the tanks. 1t
was not until oil fell to forty cents barrel
that the producers came to their senses and,
in a measure, stopped the drill.
The Snider rife, which is still used in the
British army, was invented by Jacob Snider Jr.
If Philadelphia or was more properly an adap
alton of some one else's invention for which
he could obtain no patent in the United States,
md took it to England where he succeeded in
GETTING it adopted on trial. and it has been in
use in the service ever since. We believe he
lever got any remuneration and died num-
Der of years ago in Dublin, in abject poverty.
lis family still living in Philadel phia, APP
lied for a grant from Parliament, and sue
eeded in getting meagre sum; but it is very
ertain that Snider's claims were never &C
during his life About 1888,
entleman named John Vaughn, an English
IAN, kept a wine store on Walnut street
Glow Fourth; All old dingy warehouse, like
n old wine bin, covered with dust and cob
'ebs; bat it was the finest wine-he of the
lay. There Jacob Snider was raised in the
BUSINESS, and finally became its manager and |
han b, 81 h. he |