158 



from bitumen were appropriated to the more lucrative busi- 

 ness of refining crude rock oil. 



From the time of these discoveries, the increase of the 

 oil business has been rapid beyond all precedent. Availa- 

 ble uses of this material have multiplied. The modes of 

 purifying it have been perfected, and the apparatus for 

 burning it has been receiving constant improvement. The 

 only limit as yet found to the suppty of oil, is the supply of 

 barrels to carry it away. These are in some cases now dis- 

 pensed with, and the oil instead of being barreled, is run 

 from pipes into flat bottomed boats or scows on the river, 

 and in this condition floated down to the refineries at Pitts- 

 burgh. 



Most of the pumping wells are for the present discon- 

 tinued, because they are not able to compete with the 

 spouting wells. But the time is anticipated when the 

 spouting wells shall have failed, and a more secure and per- 

 manent business established from the pumping wells. Great 

 uncertainty still hangs on the question of the perpetuity of 

 these wells. Many of them have already failed, but whether 

 from a failure in the supply of oil in their vicinity or some 

 local obstructions is not easily ascertained. Sometimes diffi- 

 culty has arisen by the boring of the wells too near to each 

 other, so that both have drawn their supply from the same 

 vein. One case is mentioned of two wells thus situated, 

 where both must be pumped at once in order to get a supply 

 from either. That the oil is inexhaustible no one can be- 

 lieve, because we can not suppose that it is now in the pro- 

 cess of formation. But there is every reason to think that 

 the supply is very large, and if it fails in one locality, 

 others will be found where judicious boring would extract 

 it. One thing at least seems necessary if the supply is to 

 be economized, and that is, that some more definite and 

 reasonable regulations should be made by the owners of oil 

 lands so that the interference of one well with another may 

 be avoided. 



