ANTIQUITY OF USE 173 



more than two thousand years ago, while the Japanese have also col- 

 lected and utilized mineral oil for many hundreds of years. 



Hence we find that the oil and gas seepages welling up through fissures 

 in the earth^s stratified crust were both observed and used by primitive 

 peoples of most every country. 



Earliest American Accounts of Petroleum and natural Gas 



The earliest written accounts of the occurrence of petroleum in 

 America is apparently that of a Jesuit missionary, who came from 

 Canada into New York in 1629 and wrote a letter concerning it, which 

 was published in Sagard's ^'History of Canada" in 1632. 



The petroleum seepages on Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, and on Hughes 

 and Little Kanawha rivers, in what is now West Virginia, were doubt- 

 less known and used by the Indians long before white men visited the 

 regions or Columbus landed in America. The earliest published account 

 of the oil springs near Titusville, Pennsylvania, appears to be that of a 

 Swedish traveler, one Peter Kalm, about 1T50, while those of Wirt and 

 Ritchie counties of West Virginia, as well as of similar seepages on the 

 Big and Little Muskingum rivers of Ohio, were first described by 

 Dr. S. P. Hildreth, of Marietta, Ohio, in an article published in "The 

 American Journal of Science and Arts," New Haven, Connecticut, for 

 February, 1826. In speaking of the flows of petroleum from the salt 

 wells of the Little Muskingum, which interfered seriously with salt 

 production, he says : "Petroleum affords considerable profit and is be- 

 ginning to be in demand for lamps in workshops and manufactories. 

 It affords a clear, brisk light when burnt this way, and will be a valuable 

 article for lighting the street lamps in the future cities of Ohio." 



Pennsylvania originated Petroleum Industry 



Pennsylvania is generally given the credit for originating the 

 petroleum industry, because it was on the Watson flats, near Titusville, 

 that the first well was purposely drilled for petroleum, although, in 

 drilling for brines, casing, jars, and drilling tools generally had all been 

 invented by citizens of "wdiat is now West Virginia, a half century before 

 Colonel Drake completed the historic well on the banks of Oil Creek. 



West Virginia first in utilizing natural Gas 



In discovering and utilizing natural gas, West Virginia clearly has 

 precedence over Pennsylvania, for probably the first recorded reference 



