Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 March 1877 — How Petroleum is Found. [ARTICLE]

How Petroleum is Found.

The Pennsylvania petroleum is found in anandstone formation fully 7,000 feet below the lowest coal measures, the Butler County oil-bearing rock lying fully 800 feet below the level of the sea. The general public entertain the idea that it is the result of the distillation of cdal; but scientists and practical operators deny any connection between the coal and oil measures. Hitherto science has afforded but little light upon the origin of rock oil, while operators have given more attention to processes for extracting it from the earth than to the investigation of the question as to how it came there. There are but few facts which wiH support any theory whatever, and these point to a product ot the decomposition ol aquatic plants and animals, as coal is the result of enormous deposits of vegetation. Other authorities have asserted that it is the result of distillation in the earth’s crust. As yet its origin is utterly undetermined. In foe winter of 1868-9, Col. E. L. Drake, of New Haven, Conn., started an artesian well on an island in Oil Creek, a small tributary of the Alleghany River. A neighboring spring had for a long time gjven out about twenty barrels of petroleum in each year, which had been bottled and sold sot medicinal purposes under the name ot “ Seneca Oil.” It was with a view of increasing this yield that tbe artesian well was started. In the latter part of August, 1859, the drill reached the oil-bearing rock at a depth of seventyone feet, and resulted in a yield of over 1,000 gallons per day. For centuries the Indians of that section had collected the oil from fce creek by spreading their blankets upon its surface, their labors being rewarded by small lots, with ffrhich they mixed their war paint, or which they burned to illumine their feasts and war dances. During these centuries no effort had been made to secure it in large quantities, and the first one to drill for the product had caused a glut in the market by producing twenty-five barrels per day. Bat subsequent events showed that Col. Drake bnilded greater than he knew. Its near resemblance to erode coal-oil —tile first product of the destructive distillation of coal—led manufacturers to subject petroleum to those same processes to which crude coal-oil was subjected in the manufacture of an illuminator, and in a day a demand for the product was created. From a daily yield of twenty, five barrels, 50,000 barrels production bas been reached and passed. From sales of

fifty-cant vials for corns, chilblains and rheumatism, transactions hare enlarged lo entire cargoes and are daily carried from our shores to every part of the globe. From seventy-one feat—the depth of the initial effort—the oil-driller of to-day sinks a shaft 1,700 feet deep—nearly one-third of a mile. Indeed, some wells have been drilled to a depth of nearly 8,000 feet Instead of a twenty-flve-barrel ” pumper,” the oil operator has sometimes been rewarded by a 8,000-barrel “spouter,",and one well on the Dougherty farm, nearPetrolia, flowed 4,800 barrels during the first twenty-four hours. From a product unknown among American exports, petrolettm arose In a deoade of rears to the third position, being surpassed only by grain and cotton. Between the inception of the industry (say 1860) and the beginning of the year just passed (1070} It has brought Into the United States more than 1400,000,000 in gold—almost equal, if the heavy premium on gold during the civil war do considered, to the entire amount of the circulating medium of the Nation, including the Treasury notes and National Bank circulation. From serving at feasts and orgies of savages it has arisen to the foremost position in the world as an illuminator, and now enters millions of households, carrying humanizing and civilizing effects which can hardly be estimated. From Col. Drake, the solitary op. crator of 1859, with his single assistant, the number reoeiving employment from drilling has increased to 8,000 men, while those who derive support from pnmping, refining and transporting petroleum, together with the mechanics, salesmen and clerks employed in various dependent industries, and among whom may be included machinists and manufacturers of barrels, boilers, drilling tools, chemicals* {;lue, lamps and the like, would form a arger army than won for us American independence. Nor is the sudden growth of this industry the most remarkable event in its career. Colossal fortunes have been made and dissipated by dealing in a staple which has ever been subject to the most violent of fluctuations in prices. Crude oil has sold as high as sl4 per barrel at the wells when demand has exceeded the supply, and, when the scales turned contra, ten cents per barrel has darkened the hopes of producers. Wonderful improvements have been made in all branches of the industiy, and Yankee ingenuity has been taxed to the utmost. It took Col. Drake eight mouths to drill seventy-one feet in 1858-9; but in 1876 Mr. Charles 8. Clark drilled over 1,500 feet in twentyeight days, the usual time being six or eight weeks. In the refining oranch Seat improvements have been effected. any will remember the dark color of oil turned out by refiners in early days. Its offensive odor made even the presence of a lamp an objectionable feature in any rtom, while the fumes arising from a burning lamp were almost unbearable. Crusted wicks and smoky chimneys attested the imperfections of the refiner’s art, annoyed the thrifty housewife and contrasted strongly with the pore waterwhite color of the premium safety oil, its freedom from odor and its superior burning qualities. Again, the volatility of the liquid made its confinement difficult, even in the most skilfully-prepared barrels. Oftentimes a lot of oil would shrink twenty, and sometimes even fifty, per cent, while being transported to the retailer. A day’s exposure on a platformcar or at a freight depot, in a hot buu or a searching wind, would make sad havoc with the dealer’s profits; or it might be carefully placed by the side of a hogshead of sugar, only"to escape from itsbarrel and quietly take up quarters in the hogshead with its neighbor.— Boston Transcript.