I860.] Draper on Petroleum. 51 



medicinal purposes. An attempt has been made in England to use it 

 as a means of forming paraffine candles. 



In America, Petroleum was known to the Seneca Indians, who have 

 a tradition to the effect that its existence was revealed to one of their 

 chiefs in a dream by the Great Spirit. He was directed to proceed 

 to a certain spot, where he would find a liquid, oozing from the earth, 

 a healing balm to his tribe. Even at this day " Seneca oil " can be 

 procured in the drug shops, and is supposed to possess virtues in skin 

 diseases and rheumatism. Day, in his " History of Pennsylvania," 

 states, that the Indians esteemed this oil very highly, using it to mis 

 with their war paint, and also for religious purposes. He quotes a 

 letter from the Commander of Fort Duquesne to General Montcalm, 

 in which an assembly of Indians, by night on the banks of the creek, 

 is described. In the midst of their ceremonies, the oil that had col- 

 lected on the surface of the water was fired, and simultaneously a shout 

 of triumph burst forth, that made the hills re-echo again. The scene 

 reminded the writer of what is related of the rites of the ancient Fire- 

 worshippers. 



"When the whites occupied the land in Pennsylvania, from which 

 the Indians had been in the habit of procuring this oil, they found 

 excavations which had been used for collecting it as it came to the 

 surface, and some of these still exist on the Pynd farm, near Oil 

 Creek. The oil may be gathered by spreading woollen cloths on the 

 surface of the water, and wringing them when saturated. It was not, 

 however, till long after, that the Petroleum oil became generally 

 known as an illuminator, and only since 1859 have wells been sunk 

 with the specific object of obtaining it. The first of these was dug 

 under the auspices of a New Haven Company, by Colonel Drake, who 

 succeeded in striking oil near Titusville, Crawford County, Pennsyl- 

 vania, and making fortunes both for himself and his friends. These 

 fortunes have been far eclipsed by those since accumulated in the 

 same region, a great many persons having become millionnaires. 



Previously to Drake's operations, however, in 1819, in boring for 

 salt on the Little Muskingum river, in Ohio, one of the two wells sunk 

 discharged vast quantities of Petroleum and gas, in an explosive way, 

 and although Dr. Hildreth states that it was in some demand for 

 lamps in workshops and manufactories, and predicted that it would be 

 " a valuable article for righting the streets of the future cities of Ohio," 

 yet for more than thirty years it did not come to be used in this way, 

 and might have remained still longer comparatively unknown, had it 

 not been for the attempted production of illuminating oils from the 

 slow distillation of bituminous shales and coal. It was the application 

 of the methods of purification thus learned, that enabled Petroleum, or 

 rather Kerosene, one of its distilled products, to replace the animal and 

 vegetable oils previously used. 



The method of working to get oil is as follows : — The land is 

 either bought or leased ; in the latter case one-half of the soil goes 

 as a royalty to the owner. An engine and machinery have then to be 

 brought to the site. The latter contains, as an essential feature, a 

 walking beam, of about thirty inches stroke, to communicate motion 



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