Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1938-08-13

Petroleum > one of the Oldest natural
products used by man. Scientists believe
that petroleum was formed from decomr
posed marine plants and animals left
buried in mud of ancient seas. As time
went on the mud became stone, some OF
it limestone and some of It shale, form
ing what are known as source rocks" Of
petroleum. Source rocks are found on
every continent
People used petroleum centuries before
the Christian era. Noah calked the Ark
with pitch" which was form of pet
roleum gathered from the shores of the
Dead Sea- Many stories show that the
Greeks considered oil useful They de-
stroyed Scythian fleet by pouring oil
on the sea and setting it on fire. The
early. Chinese people made good use OF
oil and natural gas and invented
method of drilling.
When the Pilgrims landed in America
they found the Indians using Petroleum
or crude oil as a medicine. The early
settlers of New York, Pennsylvania and
Ohio considered rock oil" as they called
it, cure for rheumatism.
Although oil comes from the ground
now at the rate of millions of barrels
year the early supply was limited.
Production OF oil in great quantities is
an American development, comparatively
new. Oil was found first in this country
floating on top of springs Later wells
were dug and the oil lifted to the surface
in buckets.
George Washington, visiting western
Pennsylvania in 1853 bought a tract OF
land which contained an oil spring and
listed it in his will as one of his more
valuable possessions.
While most people used oil as a medi
cine in 1900, the men who drilled Tor
salt in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia,
Kentucky and Tennessee thought 1t was
a nuisance because it spoiled their wells
In those days there was no artificial
light Well-to-do people burned whale
oil in their lamps For II American
sailors ldsked their lives as they sailed
remote seas. In other homes, oil OBJ
tanned from coal was burned for light,
but it was too expensive for general use.
In pioneer homes such as that of young
Abraham Lincoln, the tallow candle or
the pine knot provided illumination.
One Gay some years before the Civil
War graduate of Dartmouth College,
a lawyer named George H. Bissell, went
back to Dartmouth to visit his old teach
er, Professor Crosby. On the professors
desk he noticed a small bottle filled with
dark fluid Bissell asked the professor
what il was and he told him that 1t
was a kind of mineral oil that came from
salt wells ana IlOdleu on Inc SISShs III
Pennsylvania and added that he thought
it could be refined and used for illumin-
alton.
Bissell thanked Professor Crosby and
said goodbye. His mind was filled with
a great plan. Soon he formed America
first oil company-the Pennsylvania ROCK
Oil Company. Stills to refine the oil
were built and lamps were made to burn
oil in the form of kerosene. But enough
oil could not be found in the salt wells
or the creeks.
One summer day Bissen was walking
along a street in New York and saw an
advertisement with a picture Of a salt
well derrick in a drugstore window. In
stantly a great idea flashed through his
mind. He determined to dig a well
especially for oil at Titusville, Pennsyl-
vania.
And so in the same neighborhood
where George Washington had found oil
a hundred years before, the first COM
mercial oil we'll was begun. A railroad
CONDUCTOR tall, solemn man named
E. l.. Drake--was chosen to take charge
of drilling operations He called him
self Colonel" to impress the people in
Titusville and he told them that he was
drilling an artesian well so that they
wouldn't make fun of him.
Month after month went by and still
the "artesian WELL produced nothing.
The people of Titusville laughed, shook
their heads and exclaimed, brakes
folly!" But Colonel Drake was mot
discouraged He was determined to
find OIL An old blacksmith, called
Uncle Billy Smith, manufactured special
Modern science has given Montana a r
future development of its vast oil reSOur
veIopment of the future viii have the
geophysics. Wells will be drilled more
tools, than I'm any other state I'm the Uni
creased profits 10 operators. Furthermore
TO come into the world market at time '
duction will be past in the other great oil ]
oil produced thus far-worth something owe