246 THE EARTH OR ROCK OILS OF AMERICA. 



About 1,200 to 1,500 barrels, containing 40 gallons each, are now, it is 

 said, being raised daily, and sent to New York, where, when refined, it 

 sells in any quantity at a price equal to 3s. sterling per gallon. There is a 

 residuum, also, which is described as being used for the manufacture of 

 superior candles. Many shipments of the oil have been made to Australia. 



The enclosed extract is from a letter recently received from Mr. W. J. 

 Palmer, of Philadelphia : — " I have seen in several local papers for some 

 weeks past accounts of the products of these extraordinary oil springs. One 

 statement said that as many as 2,800 barrels (forty gallons each) had been 

 put into the wagons at a railway station near these springs in a siugle 

 month, and that the quantity was constantly increasing. The oil is sent to 

 New York, Philadelphia, and other eastern markets. I have recently 

 made a visit to the oil region of North-Western Pennsylvania. The supply 

 of natural oil found there in such quantities is really a wonder. There are 

 now some 1,000 borings, which have penetrated to all depths in the rocky 

 strata, and probably fifty or a hundred of them have actually produced 

 oil. Some have reached oil at a depth of from ten to fifty feet, others 

 at 300 and 400 feet, while some go 500 feet and do not get it. The 

 phenomenon occurs in one of the wildest and most sterile portions of 

 Pennsylvania. Where one year ago land rarely brought over 5 dollars 

 per acre, it has since sold at the rate of over 1,000 dols. per acre for sites 

 to bore upon. Tbe oil is of a most excelleut quality for illumination, but 

 has not yet been satisfactorily demonstrated to be adapted to other pur- 

 poses. The geological position iu which it occurs in North- Western 

 Pennsylvania is iu the Hamilton and Chemung groups, underlying the old 

 red sandstone, which is here missing. The nearest oil has been discovered 

 at a depth of about 450 feet below the lowest bed of coal, and does not 

 seem to be of vegetable origin, but to have been formed from the extensive 

 animal remains fouud in the Silurian rocks. The crude oil is now sold in 

 New York for 25 cents per gallon. It is refined and sold at a much higher 

 price. The wells produce from five to a hundred barrels daily, of forty gal- 

 lons each barrel. This mineral deposit promises to be of great commercial 

 importance to Pennsylvania, aud perhaps to Ohio and Virginia." 



A correspondent in the Times defines more clearly the districts of its pro- 

 duction, and furnishes some additional information. " If (he says) you have 

 Colton's or any other large map of Western Pennsylvania, you will observe 

 that the place called Union Mills is situated in Erie county, Pennsylvania, 

 instead of New York State, and that Oil-creek, a branch of the Alleghany 

 river, has its origin a few miles south of Union, and discharges its waters 

 in the Alleghany, at the distance of about thirty miles. Ever since my 

 earliest recollection (thirty years or more), and for ' time whereof the 

 memory of man runneth not to the contrary,' oil has been obtained from the 

 surface of the water of Oil-creek in eddies, by spreading a woollen blanket 

 on the water and then wringing out the oil, and been used for medicinal 

 purposes, by external applications, for rheumatism, &c, and sold under the 

 name of ' Seneca oil,' from the Seneca tribe of Indians who at one time 



