Bismarck weekly tribune., 1885-06-26
OPENING E OIL WELLS.
FIRST EXPERIMENTS IN HToRPEDo.
ING" FOR PETROLEUM. Z.

=
suits History 81 an Important Factor
In the OH Business lIodus
\, OperandL
sS5l5 lSt Louis POST Dispatch t1st$s
III On Aug. ~, 1889 twenty five years ago,
Col Drake completed drilling On the fats,
near Ttusville, Pa, the first oil well
ever struck in the United States It was,
compared with some OF the great wells after
ward discovered, asmal affair, = pumping
only twenty five barrels OF oil day, but It
was sufficient to cause an influx Of ad ventur.
ers from all parts Of the globe, rivaling any
thing known in the gold excite ment Of '49.
Thousands Of wells were soon put down
along the banks Of Oh creek, and every day
brought forth some new phenomenon in the
new industry. Among other things it was
discovered that one well sunk within q few
feet Of another already producing was not
certain to get oil Often one dry hole was
drilled in the space between two flowing
wells. This fact and others gave rise
to the @creyice theory" which, turned into
common English, means that the oil
is not always held, as water is, in sponge,
In all the rocks in which it is found, but
runs through the rock in seams or veins.
These veins Of oil wind through the strata Of
sandstone by thousands. and in zigzag, tor
tuous courses. Now, although these veins
are very close together, it is possible that
the drill can enter the rock and pass through
it without touching or breaking one Of them,
and hence the well lie dry. It occurred to
several men independently and about the
same time that were torpedo lowered into
the well-hole and exploded at the bottom it
cLo
to the oil veins. OF the several men who
had the. idea only one carried it to prac.
tical results. In 1865 C,,l. E. a. L. Roberts,
Of the Army of the Potomac, now deceased.
visited Titusville with six torpedoes which
he had constructed in the fall OF the pre-.
vious year. ,,rs -;
People looked upon the invention rather
oddly at first, and it was not until July 81,
1865, that he was allowed 20 put two Of his
torpedoes in the Ladies' well on the Watson
fats to the east of the city. Tho we'll had
been pumping OIL but after it had been tor
pedoed it commenced flowing People began
to think that there might be something in
this torpedo after ALL and in December, 1856,
one was lowered into the Woodin we'll on
the Blool farm and exploded. The well had
never produced drop of oil, but it now
commenced yielding from eight to forty
barrels day. One month later another
torpedo was used, and the production of the
well increased to eighty barrels This as
sured the success of the torpedo for purposes
other than destroying ships by blowing
them up. '. g.. s. n.
After the result at the Woodin well the
torpedo came into general use throughout
the oil region A company was formed with
capital Of $500, 900 to work the patent and
torpedo factory was erected in Titusville.
The effect of toIpedoes upon the production
OF the oil regions was marvellous At the
time the Woodin well was shot (1866) the
production of oil was declining rapidly. and
alarmists were predicting speedy collapse
Of the petroleum industry. With the intro
duction Of the torpedo the condition of
affairs rapidly changed In the summer of
1867 the output of the wells on Oil creek was
| increased many thousands of barrels In
1866 the; total production was s, 697, ,527 bar
rels Wells that had never produced a
drop of oil were torpedoed and caused ia
flow; wells of small production were con.
verted into "gushers," and old wells nearly
exhausted were revivi6ed and in their SEQ.
ond leass Of life did more than ever before.
But the great part played by the torpedo
in the oil business did not really begin until
the opening Of the Bradford field in in 1875.
The sand in this field is blackish and and
yields its oil reluctantly. The district, how.
ever, is Of great extent and contains thou.
sands of wells that have been steauily pro.
ducing for years. Had it not been for the
Bradford field the immense stock of oil
above ground, now amounting to SO, ,OOO, 900
barrels (of forty-two gallons each),
would not be. It is safe to say
that fully one-half of the production
~ ao1S -. 4
There are to-day nearly 10000 producing
wells in the oil regions, and there are thous-
ands OF exhausted wells aba ndoned, and
their derricks slowly rotting. It is estimated
that on the average three torpeloes have
been put in every we'll drilled. Many wells
are torpedoed pretty nearly every month
| for the purpose Of cleaning away the par
| aftine in the hole, opening fresh assures in
tho rock, and thus maintaining the proiu =
tion Of the we'll The Medoc we'll, on the
| Mcclure farm, in the Church Run district,
near Ttusvilie, was torpedosd twenty four
times. <+ 8, d" - '..
The first torpedoes were comparatively
inoffensive when compared with those now
in use. The torpedoes with which Col
Roberts made his first experiments in the
Ladies' we'll and the Woodin we'll were small
cylindrical tin tubes, from four to six inches
in diameter, and holding few pounds OF
gunpowder. These were lowered into the
well hole, covered with water SO as to pre-.
vent the force of the explosion from acting
upward, and we're fred by means Of q
weight dropped upon q Illuminating cap
fixed at the top of the torpedo. Later on
nitro glycerine was substituted for gun
powder, and the charge Of explosive in.
creased until now torpedoes containing al
much as 35' pounds of the nitro-gly cerine
are not uncommon. A few days ago such a
charge was used at the Markham we'll In
Thorn creek and the explosion was felt fol
seventy-;ive yards on the surface around
the well-hole. The torpedo was down l,O0l
feet In the earth. Thousands Of pounds oi
nitro-glycerine are daily used in the OF
wells; indeed, nitro-glycerine was FIRST
brought into commercial u>e in th = oil ~
gionS 2. *~.5 ''-H .-p "
| Building q Sand-Dune.
[Scientific Journal
The cause OF the great sand-dunes alons
the banks Of many rivers, and particularly