Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1859 — Discovery of a Subterranean fountain of Oil. [ARTICLE]

Discovery of a Subterranean fountain of Oil.

Coi resp'dtflCrtce of the X. Y. Tribune.

Titusville, Pa., Sept. 8, 1859. Perhaps you will recollect that in 1854 there was organized in the city of New York a company, under the name of the Petatisylvania Rock Oil Company, which, for some good reasons, passed into the hands of some New York capitalists, and was by them removed to New Haven. In 1848, the Direotors leased the grounds and springs to Mr. E. L. Drake, svell known on the New Haven Railroad. He came out here and, in May last, commenced to bore for salt, or to find the source of the oil, which is so common along the banks of Oil Creek. Last week, at the depth of seventy-one feet, he struck a fissure in the rock through which he was boring, when, to the surprise and joy of every one, he found he had tapped a vein es water and oil, yielding four hundred gallons of pure oil to every twenty-four hours (one day.) The pump now in use throws only five gallons per minute of water and oil into a large vat, when the oil rises to the top and the water runs out from the bottom. In a few days they will have a pump of three times the capacity of the one now in use, and then from ten to twelve hundred gallons of oil will be the daily yield. The springs along the stream, I understand, have been taken up or secured by Brewer &. Watson, the parties who formerly owned the one now in operation. The excitement attendant on the discovery of this vast source of oil was fully equal to what I ever saw in California, when a large lump of gold was accidentally turned out.