Omaha daily bee., 1889-06-07
THEqOiL WELLS.
A Visit to the Famous Shoshone Basin
IN Wyoming.

IN, Wyoming
Joe DeBarth thus desc ribes, in the
Wind River Mountaineer, visit to the
Shoshone oil basin:f
ION last Thursday morning, accom-
panied by Fish Commissioner Orson
Grimmett, / paid the wells of the Sho-
shone oil basin q visit. Upon our arri-
val at the wells we were received and
royalty entertained by Hon. Mike MUIR
ply. After an hours rest Major Domo
Joe Brown joined the party and drove
us to the three oil spouters. These
wells are numbered l, 2 and 8, and are
situated about 900 feet apart, forming
a triangle. ci s-~
No. 8 we'll was the first one visited.
Here Messrs. Murphy and Brown un-
locked the we'll and turned on the
steam" A noise, loud as thunder, and
not unlike that made by a locomotives
exhaust, ensued. Then came The oil, a
seething, smoking, black mass, thick as
molasses and two inches in diameter.
The mass, as it rushed from the we'll
pipe, foated down gradually inclin-
ing ditchway and over an embanlment
into the smallest of two mighty lakes Of
lubricating liquid. In this natural
Charles Blydenburg) are fully 5000 bar
rels of oil. nearly all of which cannot
but be wasted in time through atmos
pheric causes.
Well No. 2 is situated Immediately
on the banks OF the Little Popoagie
river. The noise of the uprising gas,
when the oil tube was opened, was al
most deafening, followed a minue later
by two-inch stream of jet black oil.
The entire surroundings seemed sur
charged with the smell OF oil, and Mr..
II oh, NI,x
body that made HIM slippery as an eel,
even his words partaking OF the lubri-
cant's nature and becoming remarkably
smooth and oily.
At we'll No. | the most marvellous
sight met our gaze. Here is situated
the famous oil spring that has been
written of so often. After the we'll had
spouted oil TO distance of forty feet
abross the second lake and had been
shut off, our attention was directed to
the unusual disturbance occurring in
the spring. The oil took on motion
something like water at a boiling heat;
then the large bubbles would burst and
throw the black liquid into the air to a
heighth of four feet. Mr.. Murphy in
formed US that the spring always ''acted
just so" whenever the well was turned
on and then closed. Although we paid
the spring q second visit some half hour
after the we'll had been closed, its sur
face was as much or c'cn more disturbed
than when we first noticed its strange
actions.
Our attention was next directed to
the larger of the two oil lakes. This
lake is about three 'rudred yards in
length, its width varying from twelve
to fifty feet. This huge body of oil is so
thick that wild ducks lighting on its
surface become 80 weighed that they
are never able to extricate themselves,
in consequence OF which the bodies of
dead ducks are as thick on the oily sur
face as a fly paper is of flies. Prof.
Blydenburg estimates the number of
barrels OF oil in this lake at $4,000.
Mr.. Murphy thinks that the daily
loss of oil in wells and lakes by evapo-
ration is fully three barrels. Much of
the oil that finds its way to the surface
from we'll No. 2 trickles down an en-
bankment and ON to the surface of the
river and is thus carried off,"