THE OIL-SUPPLY OF THE WORLD. 119 



provides in its five hundred great iron tanks storage for upward of 

 30,000,000 barrels ! The . company receive all the oil yielded by the 

 wells of certain districts, and account to the owners of each for the 

 amount received. 



The oil thus obtained is not all alike in quality. There are a few 

 wells at Mecca in Ohio, some in Illinois, and others near Franklin in 

 Pennsylvania, where it is of extraordinary thickness, and can be used 

 as grease without further preparation. It fetches about five times 

 the price of ordinary crude jDetroleum, and at the present moment sells 

 at £4 per barrel. At Mecca this lubricating oil is found in an area 

 fifteen miles in length by five in width. It is estimated that 500,000 

 barrels have already been taken out, by pumping wells at an average 

 of forty feet in depth. 



Passing north across Lake Erie to the " Dominion," we find four 

 distinct oil-bearing areas. They lie in Tilsonburg, Enniskillen, Mosa, 

 and Oxford townships. As in the States, so^ in Canada, the oil-region 

 has been suggestively named Petrolea— a name, however, which applies 

 eepecially to this principal city. 



It is just about twenty years since Mr. Murray, geological surveyor, 

 in riding through the dense untrodden forests of oak and hickory, ob- 

 served here and there beds of bituminous matter, and on closer exami- 

 nation he became convinced that these were deposits where oil-springs 

 had overflowed and evaporated. At a place now known as Thames- 

 ville (the counterpart of the Titusville of Pennsylvania) he perceived 

 oil floating on a stream, and found that there, too, the people were in 

 the habit of gathering up this scum in flannel, and using it as ointment 

 for wounds on horses. 



He called ofiicial attention to the subject, and soon the silence of 

 the forests was a thing of the past, and the district was overrun by 

 crowds of busy men. 



Now oil cities " spring up " with mushroom speed, wherever pro- 

 ductive springs are struck in new districts. With oil, as with all else 

 in the States and the Dominion, there is a constant movement toward 

 the northwest ; and every one, who finds his oil-supply failing, as a 

 matter of course moves to the northwest, taking with him his pump 

 and derrick, and all the casing of the well, and sets up his drilling ap- 

 paratus wherever the ground appears most promising. 



The yield of oil is not to be compared with that of the Pennsylvania 

 springs, and two years ago it was estimated that the sixteen hundred 

 wells then in active operation did not collectively yield on an average 

 more than 2,400 barrels per diem. The richest well at present is " The 

 Lawyer," near Marthaville, which has an average flow of eighty bar- 

 rels a day ; but, on the other hand, many only yield one barrel. The 

 oil here is generally a greenish-black fluid of the consistency of siruj), 

 and is mixed with much water and some gas. 



[7b be continued.'] 



