INSIDE A DERRICK. 15& 



it a pity that anything should be lost — a Scotsman 

 no doubt — invented an apparatus for controlling the 

 spouter. It took the form of a steel cap, against 

 which the spouter was to play, but the spouter simpl}^ 

 laughed at so puerile a device. At least I know of 

 one which bored a hole as clean as a drill through a 

 9-inch steel plate in three hours ! 



Having seen the raw product discharged into re- 

 servoirs constructed for the purpose, I next entered a 

 derrick to see what was happening inside. The boring 

 is quite small, only a few inches in diameter, growing 

 smaller too as it descends, and when you come to con- 

 sider that it will as likely as not go down 2000 feet 

 or more into the bosom of the earth, you realise the 

 extraordinary difficulties which may beset the searcher 

 for oil. One of the worst calamities that can befall 

 him is for something such as an implement to fall clown 

 the narrow shaft and get stuck at the bottom. Days 

 of patient and anxious labour may be expended in an 

 endeavour to fish it up again or pound it to powder if 

 this proves impracticable, and, if the worst comes, the 

 well may have to be abandoned and the work begun 

 all over again. One company fished for implements 

 thus fallen for five months, and then gave it up and 

 bored a new well. It is on record that the remarks of 

 the said company on the subject of choked wells were 

 not good to hear. The average cost of boring a well is 

 £5000. 



It is difficult to give any adequate idea of the air of 

 bustle and activity which pervades the oil-fields which 

 surround the town. Perhaps the following facts may 

 serve to assist the imagination. In 1902 the aggregate 

 depth bored in sinking new wells and deepening old 

 ones reached a total little short of 46 miles, a fiofure 

 which was surpassed in each of the four preceding 



