SOMETHING ABOUT OIL. 287 



flowed three hundred arid six hundred barrels per day. 

 Others flowed a thousand, two thousand, and three thou- 

 sand barrels per day. Three flowed severally six thousand 

 barrels per day; and the "Black & Mathewson" well flowed 

 seven thousand five hundred barrels per day ! Three years 

 later, that oil would have brought ten dollars per barrel in 

 gold. Now its escape was the mere pastime of full-grown 

 boys. It floated on the water of Black Creek to the depth 

 of six inches, and formed a film upon the surface of Lake 

 Erie. At length the stream of oil became ignited, and the 

 column of flame raged down the windings of the creek in 

 a style of such fearful grandeur as to admonish the Cana- 

 dian squatter of the danger, no less than the inutility and 

 wastefulness, of his oleaginous pastimes. From detailed 

 determinations, I have ascertained that, during the spring 

 and summer of 1862, no less than five millions of barrels 

 of oil floated off upon the water of Black Creek — a nation- 

 al fortune totally wasted, as inherited fortunes are apt to 

 be wasted, by those not educated to an understanding of 

 the amount of labor and time consumed in the accumula- 

 tion of such fortunes. [See Appendix, Note VIII.] 



The general conditions of oil-accumulation may be thus 

 epitomized : 



1. A formation containing the material for the produc- 

 tion of oil by slow spontaneous distillation. 



2. A porous formation or reservoir above the mother 

 rock, or within it, in which the oil may be accumulated. 



3. An overlying impervious formation, which shall pre- 

 vent the escape of the product to the surface of the earth. 



4. A dome-shaped conformation of the impervious roof, 

 which shall prevent the lateral escape of the oil, or its dis- 

 semination through spaces too extensive. 



The failure of either one of these requisites will convert 

 all the other indications into illusory and seductive temp- 



