Arizona republican., 1918-07-16
SHOOTING" A WE'LL
 IS EXCITING SPORT
(Boston Post)

Behind every gallon of gasoline that helps to drive the wheels of the world is complicated history.
 The most romantic aspects are those that deal with petroleum, the parent of gasoline, and win the varied and new uses to which the fluid fuel is put. The oil prospector, although unduly ne glected by writers of adventure stories. IS as picturesque a figure as the seeker for gold. The searcher for oil has gone into remote places in the frozen soli- tudes of the north and the lush jungles Of the tropics; he has been in peril rom superstitious or suspicious na- tlVes; he has had profound disappoint- ments, and he has started spectacular booms that have been as discouraging and as encouraging as anything that the gold prospector has done.
 Petroleum ought, one imagines, to be the easiest thing in the world to find. But the oil wealth below the ground does not always betray its presence there. Oftentimes tremendous strikes have been made by boring in the neighborhood of natural gas vents or where films of oil coat the water of streams or lakes. Just as often, how the prospector who thinks that he has surely struck oil.' And sometimes enormous petroleum reserves are dis covered without any of the telltale oil traces on the surface.
 The oil prospector has trailed his weary way through every continent and through practically every district where one might reasonably expect to find oil. He is lured on by the knowl- edge that if he can find q gusher, it Will mean as many millions as come from the discovery of a bonanza gold mine.
 Oil boring is both a simple and an intricate proceeding. Under the cable system of drilling there has been de- vised mechanism which oil men call a string of tools." It sounds like a child's toy. but string of tools sell dom weighs less than ton, and often times two tons. This enormous weight above a cutting edge naturally has lit tie trouble in shattering even rock ledges. In quicksand and clay the cut ting is done by a rotary tube.
 The most interesting moment in tho process of well sinking comes when ( charge of nitroglycerin is exploded al the bottom of the shaft. The operator who handles this sensitive explosive seems to put little value upon his life He drives about over rough mountain roads with cans of nltroglycerin 1T his wagon. The wagon is usually cush. toned, but not many precautions seen to be taken.
 Unless there is hollowed- out cham Der at the foot of the oil well, it i probable that the hole will soon b. filled with clogging sand. In some To calities it is unnecessary to shoot ; well, but this precaution usually save much avoidable delay and expense.
 The operator casually pours tn dangerous nitroglycerin into the shell which is capped by a detonator. Tn shell is carefully lowered into the hol that has been bored until it touche the bottom. Then the operator, afte looking around to see that everyon else is far back from the we'll mouth drops down the hole a heavy piece o Iron, shaped so that it rotates and ye does not lose speed by hitting the sid walls of the wells. The operator doe not leave the hole until he feels tn ground quivering under him, a sigma that the shell has exploded and that , is time to be getting away from tha locality