142 WALKS AND TALKS. 



passed through the village in 1824. Subsequently, a shaft 

 was sunk, and sufficient gas concentrated to supply thirty 

 burners. Thirty-seven years afterward, another shaft was 

 sunk thirty feet, and two borings were made one to 150 feet. 

 Jn 1858, two thousand cubic feet of gas were delivered daily 

 through the village. 



During the years of the great oil excitement, from 1860 

 to 1870, many of the borings for oil reached only gas. In 

 Knox county, Ohio, in 1860, two wells were sunk for oil. 

 In both, streams of salt water were intercepted, and, at about 

 six hundred feet, an immense reservoir of gas was struck. 

 The gas ejected the water with great violence. The first well 

 was bored in the winter, and the water soon covered the derrick 

 with ice, forming a kind of chimney sixty feet in height. 

 Through this, the water was thrown, at intervals of about one 

 minute, to double that height, or 120 feet. After the water, 

 and with it, came a great rush of gas, which continued until 

 the pressure below was relieved, when the water again began 

 to accumulate, and was again ejected. The process was en- 

 tirely analogous to the action of the geysers described in Talk 

 XIV. In the Knox county well, gas took the place of steam 

 in the geyser. When the derrick was covered with ice, the 

 gas escaping from the well was frequently ignited, and the 

 effect, especially at night, of this fountain of mingled fire and 

 water, shooting up to the height of one hundred and twenty 

 feet, through a great transparent and illuminated chimney, is 

 said to have been indescribably magnificent. 



When I visited the spot, in 1866, a two-inch gas pipe had 

 been fixed in the orifice of the second well, and the gas was 

 escaping with a power and volume which were startling. The 

 sound could be heard for a quarter of a mile. The pressure 

 was two hundred and sixty-two pounds to the square inch, 

 as reported by Mr. Peter Neff. The ignited jet formed a 

 flame twenty feet in length, and as large around as a hogshead. 

 It was an exciting spectacle. If the stop-cock were clos< <! a 

 few minutes and again opened, the accumulated pn-ssurr Lravr 

 a volume of flame as large as a house. The supply of gas 



