The herald., 1896-06-28
TORPEDO MANS DANGEROUS
WORK,
Death Faced Recklessly by People Who
"ShoOt" Oil Wells.

This has been a busy season for the
torpedo man, and he is reaping har-
vest from his perilous work. Few of
them ever accumulate any money from
1t, however. One reason is that SO many
OF them do not live long enough to store
up much of their wages, while the
prices are so low that the margin of prof
1t Is not big.
In spite ofsthe danger of handling nj.
troglycerine. a good many accidents
happen that that are not followed by
loss of life. A group of brokers and
producers sat in the Oil Exchange YES
terday talking over some such events.
e. s. Laughlin told of shot in three
shells put in well of his not far from
the city. Two sections had been low
cred to the sand. The third was lost
from the cord at distance of 400 feet
above the sand and when an ATTEMPT
was made to recover it and sink 1t the
rest of the way it exploded. The shoot
er stood over the hole as the shot went
Off The explosion knocked him down.
lifted his cap into the derrick, burned thp
one side of his face and nearly drowned
him with the flood of oil and water that
followed. But he was around that same
day in good repair
About dozen years ago torpedo man
had two shots to put in well on the
Bingham lots, near Coleville. He had
carried the stuff out in his wagon. and
was filling the shells to lower them into
the first well. The other well was on
the NIL farther up a narrow ravine. The
upper well was connected with a tank
filled with oil still farther up the hill
This Oil was used for firing the boiler.
by some error the oil line was opened
and free flow of oil allowed to run
through while the shot was going down
the first well. The deuge of oil cam
down to the drilling well, and instead
or being governed at the boiler the fire.
man was not expecting it, and the result
was an oil fire of beautiful magnitude.
The season was fall time, with dry hem
lock brush on all sides, and as the burn
Ing oil poured down the ravine it headed
directly for the well where the shooter
was with his load of glycerine in the
wagon for the other WELL He saw the
flame sweeping toward him and as he
was just ready to fire the shot lie low
cred the weight and jumped to his
wagon. He put the whip to his horses
and went out of that gulch on n frantic
gallop, his wagon bouncing over the
roots like ball. Men who met him. not
Knowing the circumstances, but recog-
niZing the contents of the fellows wag-
on, thought he had become suddenly in
sane, and fled to get out of his way.
Two miles he galloped his horses over
the awful roads and then pulled I'D safe
from harm with his dangerous load.
But the wells did not escape so easily.
The one he shot put up it's flow of oil as
the flame from the oil swept down the
valley, and 1t flashed into q blaze which
shot hundreds of feet into the air. A
stiff breeze blew the flame along the
ridge, and III few minutes a dozen
wells were afire. Oil from the burning
tanks poured down the hillside, the dry
brush. saturated with oil, burned fierce.
ly, and for two days the mountain was
mass of fame. Had the shooter not
taken his wagon out of the vicinity with
the fearful speed he did an explosion
that would have wrecked everything in
sight would have been added to the
fire.
Its wonder Oil City is not wiped
Off the face of the earth with the stuff"
ventured listener. who sat by. Il
know of an instance of glycerin going
through town. You recollect that ex-
plosion of wagon load near Franklin
last summer. There are three or four
men on the floor now who met that
wagon as they were going out to pic
mic above town. They remarked then
about the havoc it would cause If it
should explode while going through the
city. They were Mortified. you may be
sure, to learn on their return that it had
passed through the city and exploded on
its way to Franklin"
II knew one day not long ago." said
another, "of a wagon with 100 quarts OIL
it to drive through Oil City at / o'clock
in the daytime"
The general opinion is that IL the truth
were known all of the towns Of the whole
oil country are more or less subject to
the same danger.-Pittsburg Times.