THE EARTH OR ROCK OILS OF AMERICA. 247 



roamed over this part of the State. About eighteen months ago a Mr. 

 Drake sunk a well at Titusville, on Oil-creek, by way of experiment, to 

 the depth of about seventy-four feet, and had the good fortune to strike a 

 vein of oil, the product of which has yielded him a handsome fortune. His 

 success incited others to make experiments, and the whole country for 

 more than a hundred miles on the Alleghany river and along Oil-creek 

 has been carefully examined, with the result that fortunes are being rapidly 

 realised by many. I am not correctly informed as to the number of wells on 

 Oil-creek, but they are numerous. At Tidionte, in Warren county 

 further up the Alleghany, seventeen wells are in operation, producing not 

 less than 10,000 gallons per day. There are probably a hundred wells 

 more being sunk at Tidionte, and within three miles each way. The 

 * Crescent Oil Company, 1 an incorporation having their business office at 

 this city, own a large tract of land at Tidionte, and are producing great 

 quantities of oil. By the 1st of April next they will have at least twenty 

 wells in operation. At Mecca, a small town in the eastern part of the 

 State of Ohio, is a large tract of od country, which is now being worked, in 

 which the Aurora Oil Company of this city are largely interested. Con- 

 siderable quantities are also produced from wells on the little Kanawha 

 river in North-Western Virginia. The supply obtained, also, from a 

 large territory on the Thames river, in Canada West, is almost fabulous. 

 These several oil territories are favourably situated for getting the oil to 

 market. From Titusvdle and Tidionte during the season of navigation the 

 oil can be run down the river in flat boats to Pittsburg at a very low price. 

 Tidionte is fourteen miles from the railway ; Titusville, twenty-two miles ; 

 Mecca, nine miles ; and the Canada oil lands, from three to ten miles. 

 The wells are mere holes in the ground, about six inches in diameter. 

 They are dug by driving cast-iron pipes, four inches inside diameter, to the 

 rock, varying in depth from ten to sixty feet. After finding a ' good show' 

 of oil, a pump is put iu the well driven by steam, and the oil and water 

 pumped into large vats holding a hundred barrels each, the oil rising to the 

 top while the water is drawn off at the bottom. 



" The crude oil is sold readily at Is. 2d. to Is. 4d. sterling per gallon at 

 the well, and the barrels paid for extra. It makes a better light when 

 refined than any other burning fluid I have ever seen — second only to best 

 coal gas, with no liability to explode like many illuminating fluids that have 

 been from time to time offered to the public. The phenomena produced upon 

 opening some of these wells are very singular. One opened at Tidionte a 

 week ago spouted the oil and water to the height of sixty feet, forced by 

 the gas, the generation of which seems at all times to be going on. 



*' This new trade is worthy the attention of your oil dealers, and I hope 

 will receive it The supply seems inexhaustible. Wells that commenced 

 pumping at the rate of 160 gallons per day, are now pumping six or seven 

 times that amount, while a few, from which at their opening the oil was 

 forced in large quantities by the pent-up gas, have fallen off ; but if the 

 pump is stopped a few days (as has happened by the breakage of machinery) 



