, 1889-06-21
CARBON OIL BELT.
Extent of Petroleum Deposits in
Carbon County.
InexhaustibIe Flowing Wells are
Plugged Up.
Prospectors and Investors in the
Big Horn Basin.

lie OIL Hel0s In the northern part o.
Carbon county stretching westward int
and across Fremont county, says the
Bessemer Journal, are already ascertaineG
to be phenomenal in riches and geogra,
phical extent. Practical oil men and ex
perts, from actual exploration and tests,
predict a product which can be rivalled
only by that of the famed Russian fields.
About eight miles west of Bessemer is a
genuine oil spring which flows down the
slope of Oil mountain and forms into an
asphalt bed. From Oil mountain along
the north foothills of Rattlesnake range,
for $50 miles, at intervals OF from a few
rods to a few miles, these oil springs are
found, the number OF which, with the
volume of flow, is.bewildering. About
forty five miles west of Bessemer the
same indications appear on the east edge
of the oil fields known as the Salt creek
fields, which promises abundant product
from near the surface.
The main oil field is shown to be about
$50 miles long and varying from 10 to 25
miles wide. Large companies of enter
prising capitalists have already secured
claims, and competition for interests is
sharp and continuous. To show that this
representation is neither fiction nor chim-
erical, we could only say that tests made
during the last season have justified the
largest expectations. From a well sunk
by an Omaha company less than 500 feet
deep, there is a flow of 400 barrels daily.
1t is now plugged for want Of ~transporta-
ton facilities. The pressure is SO strong
that whenever the well is opened a col
umn of oil shoots steadily into the air GO
or more feet, and the escape of gas is so
strong that work near the well Is difficult.
Machinery for further tests is being con-
veyed over wagon roads recently con-
structed for that purpose, and it is pre-
dIcted that 1889 will record the greatest
oil excitement and activity the continent
has yet witnessed, and arrival OF railroads
now being built and projected, which are
certain to come soon, will inaugurate an
output of oil the amount Of which that of
Pennsylvania will hardly warrant com
parison.
There we're filed with the county clerk
at Buffalo last week ninety locations of
oil placer lands, embracing AS, 900 acres
OF choice petroleum ground in the Bo-
nanza oil mining district of johnson
county. The ~locators named, some of
whom are prominent Omaha capitalists,
are: Ernest Rial, Russell j. Straight,
Albert Nj. Kitchen, Daniel H. Dorset,
Ernest V. johnson, Charles p. Collins,
Frank A. Hecht, William L. Hawley and
p. M. Shannon. The same company has
also secured 10, 900 acres of oil lands in
the Salt creek district, in the southern
boundary of Johnson county. In an in
terview MI. Hawley, the chief engineer,
expressed himself as confident that the
most sanguine expectations of the oil
men who are interested in that section
will be realized. and that the oil excite
ment there will equal the furore created
by the discovery of the great petroleum
fields of Pennsylvania. Mr.. Hawley and
party expect TO visit the basin the LIST of
August with a company of seventy prom
inent eastern capitalists.