Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-02-04
SLOUGH OF DESPOND,
Even RumOrs of a Big Oil Strike We're
Drowned in Mud Yesterday.
OIL WAS FOUND In ARBUGKLE NO. 8
Bat the Capacity of the Well Has Not Yet
Been Ascsrtained.
THE SCHMID ON MONTOUR Is GREASY

''The mud, the mud, the disgusting mud"
is the refrain OF all who are forced to go
through the country, and all opponents of
the improvement of country roads should
not only have their noses rubbed in them,
but should be drowned in them. The nation
is losing millions of dollars week on cost OF
carriage. They are bad enough everywhere,
but in the oil districts of this county they
are next to impossible. In the CHARTERS
field yesterday an operator was noticed try
ing to get to the Arbuckle farm, and he
found it necessary to stop a powerful horse
every quarter of mile on level road and
let him recover his breath. He was in
buggy, but another party drove spirited
horse to the top of his ability with nothing
attached but light road cart weighing not
more than 100 pounds, and was an hour and
20 minutes going five miles, and the horse
was hecked with foam. A team OF four
large horses in fine condition was sweating
and plunging to get through the mud with
a ton for load, but 500 pounds to the horse.
It cost 50 to haul this ton ten miles while
the railway freight for the same distance
would have been but 81 40, and even the
difference between7 and 45 cents ton did
not pay the owner of the horses for their de-
moralization.
A HOWL AGAINST THE MUD.
The roads have been in fluid state so
long that the rough rocks the supervisors
put in them have sunk to the bottom, and
they are as rough as corduroy road. In
some sections the mud is now of that con-
sistency that when horse lifts his foot its
withdrawal is followed BY an explosion like
that of 22-caliber gun, and yet coming the
IN 1u N q
partofone afternoon S discussion ofthe subject
"a subject of far more Importance than
those of the care of farm machinery, fruit |
growing, commercial fertilizers, ideal coun-
try homes, silos, creameries, farmers boys,
education of farmers daughters, relation |
of science to agriculture, home adornment,
growing wheat and corn, care and manage |
ment OF stock, birds OF Pennsylvania, the |
almanac and its signs, profits Of poul-
try and the necessity Of raising good horses, |
all combined, for what benefit are all these |
if bad roads make it physical impossibility |
to have them?
There was much anxiety to know some |
thing regarding oil well development south |
of the Ohio river yesterday, but it seemed |
as though the telegraph wires were so |
clogged with mud that news could not be |
had. 1t was represented that
OIL HAD BEEN STRUCK
on the Schmid farm on Montour run. but |
Mr.. Schmid said he hadn't heard from it,
and that the operators, Messrs. Dorrington
& Ewing, had promised to telegraph him in
the event of strike. He said he'd like to
hear of the strike, but the mud was so ap-
palling that he couldn't think Of driving
five miles to see about it.
J. E. McKelvey, ESQ.,, said he had been
told of strike of ], 1,000-barrel we'll some
where between here and Coraopolis, but
knew nothing more, and neither Joe Craig
nor the pipe line officials had gotten any
thing by telegraph, possibly indicating that
mud induction had been too much for the
electric fluid.
Mr.. Stewart, the man who bores the wells
in the Arbuckle farm, was laboring through
the slough in the afternoon. He said that
No. was due in the sand, and he was try
ing to get out to see what she was doing. 1t
was supposed that she might be the big
we'll rumored, but no intelligence could be
had.
ANOTHER ARBUCKLE STRIKE.
Mr.. Jamison had gone out also to see, and
at late hour last night he returned from
the farm. and reported that oil had been
gotten in Arbuckle No. g. but the size of
the strike had not been determined.
It is reported that though the Imperial
Coal Company failed to get oil in its well at
the coke ovens on Montour run, that good
gas well had been struck, which is toler-
able consolation under the circumstances,
as even gas we'll is good thing in these
days of short supply.
There is a worse than limberger cheese
smell in the vicinity of the Knopf farm
we'll, and some oil floating on the creek in
The vicinity, but the drillers were as dumb
as oysters when asked for news concerning
it, answering that indications threatened
rain. Nitro-glycerine was put into this
we'll the other day, but it is said that it re-
fused to explode.