The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1900-05-31
|OIL IS EVERYWHERE
Even the Air in California
Full of It.
DISTRICT IN SOUTHERN PART
Petroleum Was Discovered Six Years
AgO-Since That Time TOO WclL
Have Been Sunk.


Have Been Sunk.
The air in California, as we'll as the
ground, is full of oil. 1t is on the
street, in the bank, in the office-every-
where. Valuable space in the local
papers is daily filled with lurid de.
scriptions of the fortunes that await in.
vestors in shares of oil stl ok, and, in.
deed, remote must be the district and
illiterate the domestic to whom the
dazzling pictures of fortunes in oil in.
yestment are not as familiar as twice.
told tale. An oil exchange has been
formed in Los Angeles. occupying q
store room on the principal street.
where for an hour day the interested
meet and advance or depress oil shares.
Hundreds of derricks are being estab.
lished beyond the original oil limits,
and day and night the pumps are un-
ceasingly pumping oil. For rugged.
precipitous hills, that q few months
ago were worth only few hundred
dollars. certified checks for hundred
thousand are now refused and property
is leased at fabulous prices.
This condition is not confined to Los
Angeles; from San Diego come reports
of increasing oil findings.
Six years ago an enterprising individ.
ual bored an oil we'll in Los Angeles;
since that time 700 wells, each costing
50, 900, have been sunk. While some
of these have become exhausted, q
great many are still running, and new
wells are being dug at the rapid rate
of at least 100 a month. A procession
of tanks is ever on the move from the
oil districts to the various city manu-.
factories; electric light machinery
works and railway shops carry this val.
liable fuel, 81 barrels of which is
equal to one ton of soft coal. The
base of California oil is asphaltum, its
average gravity is about Is degrees, it
is thick, black oil, and one of the
best fuels yet discovered. Its by-pro-
ducts enter into the lubricating oil. the
painters. printers and other trades, and
the asphaltum, after the oil has been
extracted, can be used for street paw
ing; indeed, the ancient Mexican who
inhabited these regions hundred
years ago used it for roofing.
There is no surety as to the cost Of
sinking an oil we'll; a safe average may
be stated at $4,000. Going through
soft sandstone. the borer has compar.
atively easy task. unless he drop
tool or break his tubing, when the cost
may be much increased. At first the
product sold for So q barrel of AZ gall
Ions, but went down to 30 cents, at
which period the railroad companies
altered their engines to burn oil, for
oil at that figure resulted in vast econ.
omy to them. After the engines were
changed to burn oil up went the price,
SO that coal after all proved In some
cases the cheaper fuel. The price is
not likely to go over $1.25, and may.
in consequence of the recent discoveries
of new fields of almost unlimited ex.
tent, 20 down to a nominal figure
ag-in. Large storage tanks are built
in Los Angeles, containing upwards Of
100000 barrels of oil. The average
daily product in Los Angeles is about
5000 barrels; nearly $2,O0O.0O0 per
annum, therefore, is flowing into Los
Angeles county today from the sale OF
oil alone, and about an eighth of that
is paid to the workers at the pumps
and haulers of the portable tanks. A
vast force is engaged in the maDufac-
ture of machinery for the oil wells,
and, in quoting these statistics in refer
ence to widespread benefits of the oil
industry, some odd thousand street oil
brokers and dealers in oil company
shares must not be forgotten, for these
people subsist, temporarily at least,
upon the indirect oil output. One of
the most interesting oil fields is that of
Summerland, in Santa Barbara county,
where wells have been dug out in the
ocean below high tide, and wharves
are run out from the shore upon which
the pumping machinery is placed.
When we consider the fact that the
export oil trade of the United States is
decreasing; that the total shipments Of
1898 were 80, 900, 900 barrels less than
those of 1897, the discoveries Of new
oil fields and the attending excitement
in California will be gratifying. 1t
opens up a prospect for the Asiatio
trade that this country will undOubted-
ly take advantage of; the Russian and
Bornean oil will have competitor in
CALIFORNIA;; freights to the Orient from
San Francisco will be considerably
less than from Philadelphia.-Mining
and Scientific Press.
Portland, May PIE. B. Cowan
tells the Oregonian that people need
have no fears about the Baker county
mines, as the district has made better
returns for the amount SO far invested
than any mining region in the United
States. Mr.. Cowan spoke OF 10-stamp
plant that nets its owners $50, 900
month. In addition to the mines th,.t
are being regularly worked. vast
amount of prospecting and developing
is going on. In all respects the min
ing future of Eastern Oregon is much
better than Nome, Mr.. COwan thinks.
On farm in West Virginia there 10
an apple tree which is eight feet FIVE
inches around. In 1880, So bushels
of apples were gathered from it, and
.-1I - Al ~r-1o hov,ao for &R0 Thu