The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1917-07-29

height of the Washington monument,
and the result was an explosion which
threw up rocks and sections of four
inch pipe to height of many hundred
feet. With them came the petroleum,
which continued to squirt at the rate
of more than 5000 barrels per hour, or
at from $4,000 to 100000 barrels per
day. No preparation had been made to
store the oil, but an embankment was
thrown up around tract of 40 acres.
This made a great pit which held the
petroleum until it caught fire and de-
stroyed the derrick and the other ma
chinery connected with the we'll. The
we'll was saved, having been protected
by sand, and it continued to produce
for some months thereafter.
This is the story of the discovery of
oil at Spindle Top as it was given me
the other day by Capt A. F. Lucas, the
we'll known geologist and mining en-
gineer, who now lives in Washington,
D. c. Captain Lucas was the originator
of the dome theory of the coastal plain;
and he might also be called the father
of the great oil developments of Louis
lana and Texas which have given the
country SO many million barrels of Pc
troleum. He was looking for oil in this
region for sometime before he sunk
the we'll on Spindle Top. He had studied
the geology of the low hills, then called
islands, which rise here and there out
of the fat marshy plains along the
northern and eastern coast of the Gulf
of Mexico. He had found under these
hills beds of sulphur and salt, with
indications of oil, and had concluded
that they might be the sites of oil
pools or reservoirs far down under the
ground He concluded that the domes
had been created by subterranean
springs which had forced up the salt,
sulphur and other deposits in the form
of solution, or gases, and that they
had fallen back. creating these curious
formations. Seven years before he
drilled his well at Spindle Top he had
tried to deepen a well for Joseph Jeffer-
son, the actor, on Jefferson Island and
had struck salt not far from the sur
face. He had bored down 200 feet
through that salt without finding bot
TOM and later had gone down into the
rocky salt dome of another mound to
4 depth of 2740 feet and had there
found salt and sulphur and some oil.
There were indications of oil at the
surface of the Spindle Top mound, and
before Captain Lucas drilled there, he
took lease on 5000 acres from Carroll
& O'Brien, the owners of the property.
This included about three-fourths of
the hill, and he leased in addition about
81 900 acres of the prairie nearby. His
first we'll struck oil at 900 feet, but
there was not enough to pay at that
depth He then tried to get capitalists to
Join with him in the exploration. Sew
eral prominent men refused, but ne
finally interested ]. M. Guffey of Pitts
burg, with the understanding that they
were to put down three wells A we'll
was then sunk within few feet of
the first and the great gusher came
forth as 1 have described.
Following the Lucas gusher more
wells were put down and other streams
of oil spouted into the air. One well
produced 5000 barrels in two hours, and
another gave a million and a half bar
rels in 10 months. Within three years
after the discovery, more than 10000,
300 barrels were taken from under this
hill, and other millions have been
pumped out since then. Altogether more
than 1900 wells were sunk, and it is