The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-08-25
NEAR SELMA
Ly- y sA " iLL'MAY BE TURN
 70 iJ.o GUsHER. "-'e
Petroleum Belle Sed. to Exist on Mr. - Bakers roperty-Interesting :, Latter, from . Selmian Now ~ Fin the Nome Region. -
], Z
Advertiser Bureau,

In the! Nome 4SegloA'
 as Advertiser Bureau, '. ,yssS- ,.s. Selma, Aug. A.
 .;rver since tse discovery. of oil near Beaumont. Tsxas,s 1t has been the opin- Ion of, rnaYty, Selmians that the great oil strata passed under or near this city. This opinion was strengthened great, deal this morning when 1t was Searned that ther8 was every indica- tion that oil .cQifd be found on the Shackelford place, about three miles from this city. which is owned oy Mr. Joe M. Baker, Mana ger of the Alabama Cotton Oil Mil, An this city. MT. Ba- ker bought the Shackelford place sev. eral years ago. and has since rented IL to MT. w. H. Hogan, who has been running a dairy farm there. Yester- day Mr,t Hogan decided to dam up ditch which flows from an artesian well and make place where his cows could. get, plentys of water.
 : Ever since this well. has been bored there has always appeared oil or an oily substance on the water, and yes terday after this dam had been built, MT. Hogan gathered up a bottle or two of this oily substance which he pro- nounces after close examination to be the genuine petroleum. This specimen of oil has also been examined by seV- eral local experts, who agree that 1t is oil and everybody who has heard or the find are of the opinion that by oor- ing the well few hundred feet deeper MT. Baker will be the owner Of "gusher."
 Whether MT. Baker will bore for oil or whether he will form a stock com pany for that purpose, Is not yet boh the situation and even If it Is decided to bore for oil it is very probable that the opinion of an expert will be sought before active work is commenced. On top of the announcement of oil on the Shackelford place, near this city, It Is announced that several weeks ago Capt J. E. Kennedy found good indi- cations of oil on the Saltmarsh place, about twelve miles west of this city, and that he is now boring for oil. Whether this is true or not, could not be learned today, as your correspond ent could not see MT. Kennedy.
 The citizens who have heard of the twn discoveries are confident that oil will be found in both localities and if it is it will be great stimulant to the already steady-grewth of this city.
 A Letter From Nome.
 The. following letter from Mir Louis F. Wood an old Selma boy, but who is now at Nome, Alaska, will be read with inteerst by his many Selma friends:
 Nome, Alaska, July g, 1901. I had quite aa experience the other day coming down the Yukon River. left on the steamboat Monarch on June 9th and expected to make the trip in about six days The weather was fine, grass and flowers were flourishing and the people were planning picnics and other outdoor entertainments. We pasted Forty Mile, Which had almost been swept away by great ice jam during the break up of the Yukon River on the 17th of May. We passed Eagle City and reached Circle City in good shape. This is where the floats begin and the river spread ds there until 1t is about twenty-five miles wide and there are hundreds of islands of vari- ous sizes and almost as many channels which puzzle the pilots>and cause a great many boats to go to pieces on the rocks and bars. The river banks were 'stfewn with great blocks of ice, some weighing several tons.
 We didn't encounter any float ice until the Koyukuk was reached. about eight hundred miles from Dawson City. ! V-NicN made navigation very dangerous. At Holy Cross Mission the boat stop ped for several hours. There are several sisters and Catholic priests there who teach the Indians to read, write and raise vegetables. Vegetabl grow nicely and the sister in charge told me that they raised enough pota- toes to last from one season to another. This mission has worked wonders with the tribes in the immediate vicinity who now keep themselves clean and are very intelligent for Indians.
 At Coltag telegraph station we heard that the ice had not gone out There is a government telegraph line from Coltag to St. Mitchels which will be continued up the river this season. When within about fifteen miles from khe mouth of the Yukon we ran into solid i-e which of course stopped the boat. Guns and ammunition were looked up and the hunters among the passengers went on the war path. There were thousands of wild ducks, geese, brants, swans. curlews, snipe, rail and grouse on the low river banks and small lakes. It is no trick to kill forty or fifty geese or ducks in a couple of hours shoot Our ammunition ran out and grub ran out on the boat and things looked bad. We were put on Two meals a day which was not one good square meal The f1unkeys and walters on the boat swiped everything lhey could and the man who didn't dig ap went hungry. Each day the cap tain would make an effort to get out pf the ice. but he couldn't make it. About thirty-eve men decided to walk overland to Steamboat Slough and rom there to St, Michels. l helped put lhem ashore. being the last to leave in l Peterborough canoe with a man who Manted to walk. I was left by the steamer to pull back up the river, where there was deeper water. heavy fog came up and I could not see my boat (by this time there were seventen at or near the mouth) This happened just out of the river in Der JRg Sea. padded until l had lost all reckoning when I heard some one sing Ing out on the deep water or on the steamboat Terrell pulled for it being guided by the sound and l felt much relieved when I sighted her almost high and dry where she had run up on a cake of ice.
 The sea al this place was frozen solid Ho the ground One could look at a