Year: 1865

This liquid substance, or product, thus
procured, is Petroleum, rock oil, or coal oil
as it is often termed Chemically, it is a
hydro-carbon-a compound of hydrogen
and carbon--and belongs to family of
agents which in decomposition or combus-
ton, gives off d most brilliant light. 1t
exists abundantly in nature, and is des-
tined TO occupy the same position as a
source of light, that coal does as a source
of heat. We have in these two agents an
exemplification of the goodness of Provi-
dencc in supplying our race, from the vast
store houses of nature, products of such
prime necessity to domestic life-products
elaborated by natural laws in period long
antecedent to the existence of man, and
now to be appropriated to his benefit.


A writer i'll the Philadelphia Press, has
made an estimate of the cost of an oil we'll


six hundred feet in depth. The whole sum
is nearly seven thousand dollars, but there
are scores and hundreds of them that yield
daily, from three to five hundred barrels Of
oil. Think, reader, of the income of the
proprietors of such well Think again
of the present and prospective wealth of
the owner Of fifty or hundred acres of oil
producing land. And these are not imagin-
ary cases for just such proprietorshp has
really occurred in a hundred instances
Think of the poor boy with little or no ed
ucation, toiling early and late upon his lit
tie homestead of fifty acres, suddenly and
as if by magic, at a single stride, stepping
into real, palpable, tangible income of
from three to five thousand dollars a day !
Read the history Of Johnny Jones as given
in the Press of Dec 9TH:


Johnny Jones dhis name is good another),
Il simple country boy in the service of farmer
whose acres were very hard to TILL and therefore
twenty years of johnny life were given to meagre
crops and bad roads. He toiled among the wheat
and corn until he grew up to manhood, with no
other accomplishments beyond those necessary for
a good hostler or stage-dliver. Johnny Jones,
good hearted in his way probably attended the vii
lage church with all the devotion of young man
who had n good suit of clothes and was in love
with country girl. He married this country girl,
and it is possible with her knowledge of plain
cooking and the mysteries of apple butter, and
Johnny Jones hard sinews and constant toll, they
might have lived and died very respectable old
people, leaving the farm to their children, and
made no more impression upon the world than any
of their useful and necessary class. But the rain
falls upon the just well as the unjust, and it
came to pass that Johnny Jones found the poor bar
that left to him by his foster mother
to be mines of more wealth than were ever dscov-
cred i'll the FL Dorado Of the far west He had
enough rude sense to keep him from parting with
them for a frock string of beads, like some of
his more ignorant brethren in West Virginia, and
simply sold enough to have them developed, and
to retain an interest which, for the last year. has
paid him an income estimated at from three to five
thousand dollars day. would not like to be re-
sponsible for the effect of income of this kind
upon any Of my friends, nor should / care to have
my own conduct criticised were [ to be in receipt
of so many glorious greenbacks. Johnny Jones
become insane with his new wealth. not i'll that
sense which implies straight jacket or close con-
fnement i'll an intirmary, but with far more ter
rible meaning Johnnys sudden wealth carried
him up into the clouds, and, as the heaven of his
early dreams had been e-gratifying wealth, he
hurried out into the world with his gains, and be-
gan to be great man. Such a fish could not long
be in the sea of American life without having
around him a shoal of sharks, and so Johnny had
not proceeded very far in his new ocean of prosper
ity before shoal Of well dressed sharks-sharks
with diamond rings and astonishing vests-sharks
who knew the mysteries of the gambling houses
and the bagnio-took possession of him, and be-
gan to feed upon his substance. Off they went in
their wild career. The poor country wife was left
at home to do her plain cooking, make her apple
butter, and astonish the neighbors by the display
of several gaudy new dresses. Johnny went to
Philadelphia, showering his favors upon hack-dri-
vers who took his fancy pleasant-spoken gambling
men, and ladies of mise ellaneous and cosmopo-
tan attachments and upon all that was wicked and
vile and seducing in the great metropolis. His ca
reer extended to Western and Eastern cities and
what with diamond rings and losses, and gsmb-
ling saloons, and presents to all who asked them


in three months he managed to spend ninety thous-
and dollars. am told that Johnny's new life wore
deeply into his muscles and his sinews, and quite
soddened his poor feeble brain, and that as a Sc
quel to his career, some considerate friends who
thought that his money might be more advantage
ously applied obtained the interference of the law
and so Johnny's affairs are now in the hands of
receiver and his money is paid to careful prudent
men, and his great gains are husbanded by Others
while he is only permitted to spend limited in
come something, perhaps, like fifty hnn-
dred dollars per day which with care and prudence
may enable him to pass through this period of his
great calamity, and become a respectable and
worthy old gentleman


However abundant may be the supply of
the oil in future time, it can never lose its
Importance as valuable product 1t may.
and probably will, be cheaper in the mar
ket as more of the country is given up to
its production, but the need it answers will
ever be great Gold fuctuates in value be-
cause it only measures value but Kerosene
oil supplies want which must ever exist
As long as earth casts her shadow, SO long
must darkness be made day


But will the supply of Petroleum con-
tinue? If our view of its origin is correct,
it will flow while the everlasting hills of
coal cha II ctuud un1ncc indnoJ p;+u,n;Douc