THE OIL-SUPPLY OF THE WORLD. 117 



of refined oil fell from forty-five to thirty-two cents. Yery soon this 

 was further reduced to nine cents for crude oil and nineteen for re- 

 fined ! Already this precious " earth-oil " asserted its privilege of 

 being a special boon to the poor. 



Of course, this news spread like wild-fire, and from far and near 

 men came crowding to the wonderful oil-yielding region, and the land 

 w^as riddled with borings varying from six hundred to sixteen hundred 

 feet in depth, of which it was estimated that not more than one in six 

 yielded profitable returns. Nevertheless, two years after Colonel 

 Drake had sunk his first shaft, the oil-yield had increased to upward 

 of two million barrels, and in the following year it reached three 

 million ! As the yield of some wells decreased, new ones were struck 

 in other isolated spots. 



Of course, fire is the danger most to be dreaded by all oil-commu- 

 nities. Nowhere, unless in a powder-magazine, does the chance spai*k 

 carry with it such probability of doing mischief as in this gas-laden 

 atmosphere, where everything seems to be inflammable. Sometimes 

 through grievous negligence, but more often by the action of light- 

 ning, a tank containing perhaps three or four thousand barrels of oil is 

 struck, and then all efforts to extinguish the flames are known to be 

 futile — the owners can only stand afar off and watch this magnificent 

 bonfire, which must blaze on till it has utterly consumed all that feeds 

 it. Sometimes the gas escaping from a flowing well ignites while the 

 oil-jet is in full play, and then grand indeed, but most awful, is the 

 spectacle of that genuine "fire-fountain" — a column of living fire 

 tossed far above the dark tree-tops, and falling in a beautiful but 

 scathing rain, with a roar more deafening even than that of its ordi- 

 nary condition. 



Nor do the dread possibilities of fire as connected with the petro- 

 leum-trade end here. In all the pages of marine disaster, none are 

 more terrible than those which record how on several occasions (some- 

 times when in harbor in the midst of crowded shipping) vessels laden 

 with petroleum have taken fire, and their cargo has overspread the sea 

 in a film of inextinguishable floating fire, carrying death and destruc- 

 tion wheresoever it penetrated. This, I think, brings us to the climax 

 of possible horrors in connection with this subject. 



The "earth-oil" is found in various parts of North America; but 

 Pennsylvania is said to yield about seven times as much as all the 

 others collectively. Canada has springs of her own to the north of 

 Lake Ontario ; but the great petroleum-region of the States lies partly 

 in New York, but chiefly in Pennsylvania near the shores of Lake Erie. 

 The oil-bearing sandstone underlies a tract of heavily timbered hill- 

 country watered by the Alleghany River, Here the principal oil-springs 

 have been struck in isolated patches, dotting a belt of territory which 

 is roughly estimated at about one hundred and fifty miles in length 

 by about thirty in maximum breadth, covering an area of less than 



