Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1901-03-10

my
1t helped preserve manya mummy
Still dreadfully lifelilke and gummy
In Egypt's stone tombs from decay.
At Baku Joves thunder bolts fired it
Devout Zoroaster admired it
AS Deity symboled in flame;
Parsees from the realms of Darius,
Unweariedly earnest and pious,
Adoring and worshipping Cane.
1t cured Noah's Ham of Trichina
Creased babies and pig tails in China
Healed Arabs from far off Madina
The blind, and the halt, and the lame
Herodotus saw it at Zante
1t blazed in the visions of Dante
And pyres of supine Hindostan;
The tropics and zones have rich foun-
tains
e bubbles mid snow-covered mountains
And flows in the pits of Japan.
Confined to no country or nation
A blessing to Gods whole creation
For light, heat and prime lubrication--
All hail to the grand gift to mani"
Marietta may truly say the earth is
my mother and from her bosom have
| drawn life and health in abundance,
for surely mother earth has responded
bOuntifully to the seekers after petro-
leum and at times has she even lavish
ly given up her golden stores to the
enrichment of our people and conse-
quently our city.
Nature has never been neelectful of
her children for either in the peculiar
richness of the soil or beneath the
rocky hills has she always placed thai
which will be of use to man. Yet she
guards it with jealous eye. nothing
is to be given up without great labor:
as in the world of art and science so ii
is in the material world. Not truth
has to Art or to Science been given but
brows have ached for it and souls
toiled and striven." In the material
world there is to be no reward without
great labor. Yet if Nature is wooeu
continually she will give out little
hints that will serve as guides and at
last like the true love that she is she
will surrender and kiss the hand that
sought her most earnestly.
One of the first hints to man of the
riches beneath the earth's surface is
found in Job xxx, G: And the rocks
poured me out rivers of oil'' Many
hints are found in the Bible and con-
temporary writings. Also in the early
history of this country many explorers
mentioned the finding of petroleum
springs. In John McLaurin's Sketches
in Crude Oil, he remarks that in an old
map of the United States printed in
England in 1887. the word "petrole-
um" is marked twice, indicating that
the surface shows of oil had attracted
the notice of the earliest explorers of
Western Pennsylvania and Southeast
ern Ohio over a century ago. In one
instance it was placed at the mouth of
the stream since known as Oil Creek,
where Oil City is now situated, and the
other on a stream represented as emp
tying into the Ohio river near what is
now the site of the village of Macks-
burg, this county
These suggestions from nature were
sufficient to stimulate inquisitiye mau
to seek for riches beneath the surface of
the earth land from 1860 to 1866 a
number of small pools were found.
Those of interest to us were at Macks.
burg, Cow Run, in Washington county,
Ohio; Burning Springs, West Virginia
and Sharp's Fork of Federal Creek in
Morgan county, Ohio. Operations
were quite extensive in these localities
from 1860 to 1870 and from each place
large quantities of oil were produced
and many operators retired from act
i've work with competence. After
| 1870 our county or the lower southwest
was comparatively inactive. 1t took
from 1870 to 1890 to drill the belt FROM
Northwestern Pennsylvania to Sisters
vile, West Virginia. But about the
time Sistersville was at its best about
the same distance from Marietta, in al
most the opposite direction. Corning
came to the front with production of
over 1000 barrels per day of white sand
oil. Then it was that Marietta began
to realize that she was the center of an
oil producing country extending to Sis
tersville on the east, distance of forty
miles, to Dexter City on the north, a
distance of thirty miles Ito Corning or
the west, distance of forty miles, and