Smyrna times., 1886-02-17
For the Smyrna Times.
Petroleum's Power and Value
in This Living Age.


The West, once the place of the
least Importance, has come to the front
as the originator of forces that affect
the entire continent, by elevating or
depressing values to the extent of mil
lions of dollars and creating new and
abandoning old channels of industries
and trade. The absorbing topic out
side of politics is the continued new
" finds" " of natural gas. With it the
problem of cheap and unlimited power
for all manufacturing purposes is
solved. New machinery and new fur
naces have been invented for its appli-
cation and so successful has the exper-
iment been that it is estimated that
the saving is so manifest that manufac-
turers will have to pull up and move
into the region where it can be utilized
or go out of the business. The Chi
cagO daily papers a few weeks ago
were discussing the decision of the
proprietors of the South Chicago Roll
ing Mill, an immense plant, the works
covering acres of ground and its tene-
ment houses constituting a village, of
moving it and putting it in McKees-
port, Pa, which is a suburb of Pitts
burg. By the gas process their COM
petitOrs save more than twice their
profits in the item of coal, its long
transportation, hauling, handling and
removal of the residuum, which far
more than Outweighs their advantage
of proximity to the fine quality of iron
ore found in the copper region. At
Cleveland, which is another city of i'm
mense iron and other manufacturing
interests, we found relief in the fact
that Messrs. SlOss & Co., of Pittsburg,
were negotiating to lay down subterra-
mean mains and bring the gas in for
heating, lighting and manufacturing
purposes. Ohio seems to be the field
wherein the latest discoveries have
been made, and now it is in order for
all enterprising towns to form stock
companies to develop local production
of gas. The following places have
been successful: Finley, Lima, Col
umbus, WillOughby and Newburg.
The two frst-named have struck it
rich, having a pressure approaching
two hundred pounds to the square inch
of this volatile agent, pent up all the
past ages in the grand reservoir be-
meath the rocks, which, when penetra-
ted with a modern drill, comes forth
seething, crashing like a tempest,
soaring fifty feet high; the angry flame
swayed by the wind breaks into sep
arate pillars of fire in the blackness of
the night seen half a dozen miles
away.
Only where soft or bituminous coal
found have oil and gas been discovered
and it has not yet been decided
whether oil is the source of the gas, or
vice versa. A theory is advanced that
the distillatiOn of the gas produces oil,
like steam condensing into water.
But it is a wonderful phenomenon, a
powerful and valuable agent, and from
present indications a few score years
will see Ohio, West Virginia and
western Pennsylvania the centre of
our manufacturing interest and un-
less the Alabama enterprises make a
find of gas which they think they will,
they must dim " before the Northern
/ light of petroleum's flames.
There's better day coming for the
Yankee nation. Englishmen say that
our resources and our superior ores
plainly point to the fact that we will
soon dominate the iron market of the
world. RAMBLER.
Columbus, O., Feb. 5th, 1886.