SOMETHING ABOUT OIL. 2 73 



CHAPTER XXV. 



SOMETHING ABOUT OIL. 



fT^HE very word has wrought like magic. The smell of 

 -*- the article has turned men crazy. It has opened 

 purse-strings which the cries of the orphaned, the tears of 

 the widowed, and the pleas of religion could never loose. 

 It has made men lavish in a hopeless enterprise who had 

 no pence to spare under the counsels of wisdom. It has 

 caused men to scorn the admonitions of the instructed and 

 professional, to trust their own stark ignorance in the stake 

 of a fortune. It has led the self-reliant and pursey capital- 

 ist to heap contempt on the wisdom and experience of sci- 

 ence, to follow the lead of his own olfactory. All this be- 

 cause " oil" is a synonym for gold. 



Auri sacra fames ! quid non mortalia pectora cogis ? 



Since the historical excitement of the " South-Sea Bub- 

 ble," the business world has hardly been invaded by such 

 a fever of speculation as raged over the Northern United 

 States from 1862 to 1866. When it was positively settled 

 that oil could be drawn from the solid rocks — oil suited to 

 the uses of illumination, gas-making, fuel, and lubrication — 

 men who have the keenest eye to utility, and who counter- 

 poise all values with bullion, were constrained to admit 

 that Providence had done more for our race than they had 

 ever dreamed. No doubt many men made suitable recog- 

 nition of the services of the Almighty in facilitating the 

 ends of money-getting. The picture which memory treas- 

 ures, however, is that of a herd of po. cine quadrupeds jos- 



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