Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 August 1899 — IN THE NATURAL GAS DISTRICT. [ARTICLE]

IN THE NATURAL GAS DISTRICT.

A Very Unattractive Place Where Many Accidents Occnr. Passing through a gas-belt one will see near the roadside, in a farm lot, a .mud-bespattered, weatherbeaten derrick, with the apparently rickety accompaniment of crude appliances made familiar years ago in the oil regions—a small reversing engine, a rusty locomotive boiler, usually without a stack . and leaking at every seam; the ponderous wooden walking beam slowly oscillating night and day, stopping only to give place to the use of the bull wheel when the drill is raised and the sand pump is lowered, or a newly-dressed bit is put in service. Crude as the rig and all its details may seem at first glance, every part is soon seen to have its use, and the journey of the bit from the surface to the unknown, and perhaps barren, depths, is always accompanied by interesting and ever-varying developments. says Cassier’s Magazine. At night the measured beat and clatter of the rig in the dim light of a few flickering torches of gas, piped from some neighboring well; the trembling derrick, its lofty top lost in the darkness; the driller carefully manipulating the temper screw after each stroke, controlling the bit at the end of a rope perhaps half a mile below the surface, all form a weird sight. Accidents are frequent, and the slightst carelessness may result in dropping the tools, the recovery of which requires patience and often great ingenuity.