Huntsville gazette., 1882-06-17
An Embarrassment OF Riches.

| i nat there can De ''tOO much OF
| good thing" the old saying AYERS. The
truth of the statement will not be ques-
toned just now anywhere among pro-
ducers and dealers in oil. Oil is good
thing. A producing well is good
thing. A flowing well that costs next to
nothing for running expenses, as it runs
itself day in and day out without any
| expenditures for fuel or wear and tear
of machinery, is a decidedly good thing.
But flowing well that sends out 200
to 1000 barrels day, deluges the mar
ket, swamps the buyers, and threatens
the oil interest with widespread ruin, is
altogether vastly too much Of good
thing. AS with some exceedingly good
people who are so overpowering in their
| goodness that they become insufferable
to ordinary mortals, there is general
| disposition to treat it as a common ene-
my and throttle it.
The trouble is at Warren County,
| Pennsylvania. An industrious borer
was at work out there tapping the earth
for oil. He had bored for some time in
vain, but, beside his dry hole, he had
faith and pluck. Day after day he
drilled through the rock without even
s'show" of oil in the boring.
The interested neighbor and the idly
curious wayfarer greeted him daily and
hourly with questions, sarcastic or in
quisitive, as to show he was getting
along" and chow much further he was
| going" which were met with answers
growing more defiant in tone as the
hole went deeper and the "show" " no
better.
He had scrawled on bit of board the
expressive legend: 'tOil or China, J"
which he was about to nail on derrick
as comprehensive answer to all ques-
tions, when-the experienced reader Of
oil stories knows what to expect--the
borer suddenly dropped into hole and
was Immediately shot out as if from a
cannon. There was tremendous roar,
a jetting of green, greasy fluid high up
in the air, and the lately respondent
borer leaped six feet in his joy, cracking
his heels together and turning double
somerset into a rapidly widening pool of
green grease as he realized that at last
he had 'struck ile.'
The rush of oil from the hole was not
more swift than the rush of oil-men
from the wells round about to see for
themselves the astonishing fact Swifter
yet was the flight of the affrighUed
''operators" to the telegraph offices to
spread the news of the big strike and
get rid of their holdings before the only
big bear found its way into the market.
A panic struck the oil exchanges.
Down went the prices as rapidly as the
incautious pedestrian shoots down a
well-greased slide. The owner of the
new well was aghast at the mischief he
had caused; but what did he dop One
hundred, 500, 1000, 1,400 barrels a day
streamed out in incessant and ever
increasing fiow-on the oil exchanges if
not at the well-and down went the
prices with still greater rapidity.
Veterans in oil look at each other with
pale faces and shake their heads omin-
ously. They remind each other of the
ssbg strikes'' of the Oil Creek days
twenty years and more ago, and of the
disasters thereby caused. There was
the old original Funk well of 1861, that
operated 250 barrels day, and kept up
| its flow for fifteen months. Then came
| the Phillips well, on the Tarr farm, with
its roaring 1000, and its great rival, the
Empire well, on the McElhinney tract
"a very Jumbo of wells, spouting 5000
| barrels day. What an unmanageable
monster that was! There was no con-
trolling it, nor could its product be
saved Feeble efforts were made to
plug it, or to put in stop-cocks, but
plugs and tubes were blown out as so
many straws, and the baflied expert
menters fell back drenched with oil.
The tanks were filled to running over in
a trice, and so were the huge reservoirs
made by digging trenches and building
dams Oil Creek became literally, as
well as in name, a river of oil. The
price of barrels went up as that of oil
went down, until the latter was but ten
cents barrel, and the former at rates
that threatened to beggar even the pro-
prietor of the Empire. As for the mis-
erable owners of five and ten barrel
pumping wells, they were utterly ruined
| and, wandering dazed and aimlessly
about, became the advanced guard of
| the great army of tramps that have
since overrun the country. In quick
succession came the Sherman, the Cald-
well, the Noble, and Delamater, and
other leviathans among flowing wells,to
| drown out the small operators, till at
last fire and flood combined to put
check on production until the Standard
could be born as the savior and pro-
tector of the oil producers against an
excess of good fortune.
If the history of a score of years ago
is not to repeat itself and the oil inter-
erests are not to be drowned in an oTer-
flow of oil something has to be done, ,and
that quickly. Here is the Standards
opportunity. 1t was organized for the
purpose of regulating production and
preventing an excess. With pumping
wells this is an easy task. Stop the en-
gines, the pumping ceases and the sup
ply of oil is diminished. A big flow
well that refuses to be plugged or stop
cooked requires more heroic treatment.
1t disregards agreements or resolutions
or orders to limit the production. This
insubordination must be sat down on.
It will be done, though it may take the
highest authority of the great corpora
ton to do it. When Oildom turns its
eyes toward Warren, Pa, and sees him