The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1901-04-28
OIL MADNESS N fElI5
DREAMS INSPIRED By THE FLOW
OBJ THE BEAUMONT
GusHRsls
SLOW IN .D1seovER1NG IT
An Industrial Revolution From the
Use of Oil as Fuel Talked Of
Furious Speculation
Talked Of.


NEW YORK, April PA New Orleans
dispatch to the Sun says: rs
| New Orleans, April 19-The oil craze,
| winch has been prevailing in southeastern
1eXas and southwestern Louisiana for
some weeks, has struck New Orleans.
Large numbers of Eoil shares are being
dealt In here and all kinds of pro- ects
relalihg to OIL are being discussed.
mere was quite a boom in Beaumont
and the surrounding country there be-
fore the oil craze struck It, The Texas
city 1ssa lumber town, the very center
or the yellow pine district of Texas, and
until two years ago It knew of nothing
/, except lumber. But the lumber industry
while profitable is mot permanent, and
/ beaumont saw the day when its yellow
pine being exhausted it would sink back
to 1nsignif1canee. Two years ago the
! experiment was made of growing rice
1t succeeded and rice boom was start
ed Lands which had been quoted at 50
an acre when the lumber was cut from
fthem rose to $25. The oil craze has now
| completely killed the rice boom. If the
I rice boom increases the price of the land
tenfold, the oil craze has multiplied it
ferty times. 1t Is now everywhere held
at 81 600 an acre; and in some favored To-
! prices merely fancy ones for the court
records Of Jefferson and Grange counties
SHOW many sales at these figures.
Now that the country IS shown to be
fuH OF Oil. the wonder Is that it IL,
! not been discover ed sooner. The explana-
ton lies in the fsetithat the fat country
of Louisiana and11tTexas, lying only few
feet above the leE'elt ofgthe gulf of Mex
leo, presents to miners and m'naral ex-
perts the most aninviting field possible
One would scarcely dig for minerals in
a swamp. "a
+ Such discoveries as have been MADE
were purely accidental. Thus man
named Avery was sinking a well on his
island plantation when he struck the ia
nous salt mine Of Petit Anse on Avery
island. Subsequent. Investigations have
disclosed that the salt deposit Is the
largest in the world covering several
thousand square eniles31 and extending
from the Atchafalaya to the Texas Dor
DER 1t IS known to be 24C0 feet thick
of solid rock salt, 81 per cent pure and
it may be a mile or more thick 1t lies
only few hundred feet below the sur
face, but as most of the country is
swamp and there are hundreds Of quick
sands through which it is impossible to
drill, it is difficult to sink Shaft, and
only few salt mines are in operation.
In this salt country another shaft
struck vein of pure sulphur around
Calcasieu parish. The sulphur deposit is
nearly pure and is inexhau< tible, but
there is the same difficulty IN mining as
,elseWh ere, ou9g1nires and qu.ck:ands iy-'
ing below the surface. The mine Is snow
the pfopertYtt1of the Standard Oil COM
pany, which has found 1t profitable, but
gives noddetaifs Of it's vperatigns,,d n, a.
The fact that oil should net have been
diseoveredo before Is the more.a renlarka-
bic because IN, all the other mining oper-
ations oil was encountered. AS fer Cd
springs and gas wells they are universal
+ throughout. Southwestern louisiana. but
the natives looked upon them merely as
curiosities. IF a gas streak was struck
they merely lighted it and seemed amused
that it s,ould burn for several days.
All the time the existence Of an oil pool
in the gulf was known. Some eight or
ten miles from the coast Immediately op-
Eosite the Ioui719 na-TeNas boundary, a
stream of oil rises from the bottom of
sfff6sgulf, and spreads over the surround
4Nsaters, covering some square miles.
+s1fae9HA has the usual effect of quietfng
sstAe9eWayes and this FOOL is the refugs
! of the small vessels engage in the coast
wise trade during the great huiTica mes
sts4at Sometimes sweep across the{gSllf Of
kssemed to see any significance in87sthts
pool. 5
Occasionally shafts were sunk mainly
fby. way 7ofYexperiment and the oil has
narrowly been missed. Some of the of
ficers of the Texas & Pacific sarrKsa we'll
{zfor oirSsinr what sis Spow known as the
isoil district twenty years go They
struck the oil, but 0 Ily3sa pocket, and got
Ia few hundred barsels@ The enterpr Sc
ttcost some $1003eg aAd ssTroved ncarly a
dead loss, and nasec ne cared to repeat it..
A. few. years agoSw heT2the result of THIS
experiment Had been forgotten. a well
was sunk very near the first Beaumont
gushers The pipe was sunk LOGO feet
Land found traces of oil but it was final
t ly abandoned. A few hundred feet more
I would have struck the big vein of oil.
ALI these facts have only intensified the
! oil craze ITO think that we have had
! "a fortune under our feet all the t me and
did not know it," is the comment of the
| landowners of Texas and Louisiana. There
had been organizsd up to APP Il is 1-5 ell
companies, with "a total capital of $S2,
7S3, 900. and they ara being organized at
the rate of ten a day. Besides, there
are the pipe lines, of which one with
| S. 900, 900 capital has already been organ
lied and two each with $0,0O0eO0 capital
are proposed. One pipe line control, d by
the STANDARD O1l COHPHI1y uGdS dII6dIly
been constructed to Port Arthur.
f.. The. craze is not confined to Beaumont.
Wells are being sunk in Calcasieu, Cam-
eron. ST. Laudy, Acadia, ST. Martins
and Plaquemine parish. La, and Louis
lana is turning out new comp anies at the
rate of two a day The wells are be-
| ing sunk as fast as the necessary labor
and appliances can be obtained.
The practical work of oil mining Is as
| nothing compared with the speculation,
which is furious and thoughtlees not only
! In Beaumont, but also in New Orleans,
| Galveston and Houston. Beaumont al
ready has an oil exchange. The speedla-
ton in OIL shares is 50 great in New Or
/ leans that an oil exchange will be
started here next week, as all other
speculation has ceased. Already several
of the leading stocks are quoted on the
stock exchange and sell we'll Every
tody. clerk and capitalist alike, is dab
| bling in the oil stocks, although none of
them is listed, and. very few persons
know anything about the companies in
which they own stock.
Some of the companies have wells, some
own land upon which they expect to find
oil, some do not even own land, but ex-
pect to buy Others are mere wildcat
schemes, organized to take advantage Of
the popular craze for Or stocks. Sew
eral companies were ins the field selling
shares when it Wis discovered that they
had not even taken the; trouble to get