The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-02-20

moment the cloud of gas hid the der
rick from sight and then, as this
cleared away, solid golden column
half FOOT In diameter shot from the
derrick floor eighty feet through the
air, till it broke in fragments on the
crown pulley and fell in shower of
yellow rain for rods around. For over
an hour that grand column of oil, rush.
ing swifter than any torrent and
straight as mountain pine, united
derrick floor and top,
In few minutes the ground around
the derrick was covered inches deep
with petroleum. The branches of the
| oak trees We're like huge yellow plumes,
and stream as large as a mans body
ran down the hill to the road, 1t filled
the space beneath the small bridge, and
continuing down the hill through the
woods beyond, spread out upon the
flats. In two hours these flats were
covered with oil. The hillside was as if
yellow freshet had passed over it.
Heavy clouds Of gas, almost obscuring
the derrick, hung low in the woods. and
still the mighty rush continued. Some
of those who witnessed it estimated the
we'll to be flowing five hundred barrels
an hour. Dams were built across the
stream, that it's production might be
estimated; the dams overlooked and
We're swept away before they could be
completed. People living on Thorn
Creek packed UP their household goods
and fled to the hillsides. The pump
station, mile and half down the
creek, had to extinguish it's fires that
night on account of gas. All fires
around the district were put out. 1t
was literally flood of oil 1t was esti-
mated that the production was ten
thousand barrels in twenty-four
| hours
The strangest thing about this par
ticular we'll is that its owners believed
it to be dry, and if it had not been tor
pedoed it's value would never have been
! known.
| Just what the bottom of an oil well
looks like after an explosion can only
be eonjectured. The shots of nitro
glycerine range all the way from forty
to four hundred quarts; the latter is
| exceptional. One hundred quarts of
nitro glycerine produces the same eff
| feet that the explosion Of a ton Of gun
| powder would, and heavy shot must
| tear out a great cavern in the soft and
| porous oil rock. People who have Wis
| tied Niagara or Portage Falls, and seen
the walls of rock that line both sides of
the gulch, can get good idea of what
| the interior of an oil well must look
| like. After the drill passes through fif-
ty or a hundred feet of loose earth and
/; gravel. formation it pierces solid rock
until the oil sand is reached. The oil
and gas sands are held prisoners be-
tween lodges OF solid rock several hun
bred feet in thickness. The oil-bearing
rock varies in color, but always resem-
bles a sponge in appearance. 1t is
made up of countless millions of little
cells like honeycomb The usual size
of the hole is five and five eighth inch
es. The man who sent his wife on a
visit to the oil country, and wrote her
to be careful and not let Willie fall into
an oil well, evidently thought that the
diameter of an oil well was equal to
that of a cistern.
Hundreds Of shooters have met trag-
ic deaths since the Pennsylvania oil
(, fields We're opened. Warren Van Curen
of Bolivar, a noted shooter, has explo-
ded three thousand shots in oil wells
and is still engaged in the business
Three years ago two of his brothers
were working with him. One Of them
tripped on a gaspipe and fell, while
carrying a can of fitro-glycerine to his
| wagon, and was blown to atoms. AL
that could be found of his body was
placed in cigar box The other
brother retired from the business the
next day and bought a fruit farm He
returned to the oil country few weeks
ago, and, it Is said, will become a
shooter again. Such Is the fascination
of the hazardous calling. Shooters are
paid from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty dollars month.
Out in Indiana, one day last summer
"a stock wagon with a ton of nitro
glycerine on board went up" as the
driver was fording stream. "A gypsy
colony was camped ON the bank Of the
creek not far away and several of theil
horses We're killed and their camp was
wrecked by the explosion. The gipsies
s.olemnly declared that they saw the
driver shooting toward the stars
astride of the wagon seat, but they
grew tired of watching for him to come
down.
\ On December 23 1895, a magazine
blew up near Montpelier, Ind, and two
men and two teams were blown to at
oms. The magazine contained one
thousand pounds of stock. For severa
hundred feet in every direction from
the magazine the forest was moved
down as il by tornado. Great oal
trees three feet in diameter were brok
en- squarely off, and the limbs of the
trees were Uttered with shreds of flesh
Two men and four horses We're scat
tered into million bits. and no at
tempt was made to separate the parti.
Giles of bone and flesh. A remarkable
thing was the fact that a heavy stee
tire from one of the wagons wa:
wrapped several times around small
tree many rods away. One of The
shooters was George Hickok, a giant il
stature. He had been shooting since
1876, and this was his first accident
That morning when he left home Hic
kok was unusually cheerful. He kissed
his wife and daughter good~by, as wa:
his custom. In answer TO the query i
he would be home to dinner, he said:
You know, Jennie, we are never SURE
of coming back
Early last November two men were