20 ~ University Geological Survey of Kansas. 
wholly inexcusable if he supposed oil operations would ever 
be important—and the man who thinks Colonel Drake was 
‘the first man with a clear conception of the future of petro- 
leum’ could swallow the fish that swallowed Jonah! 
‘“‘Above all else history should be truthful and ‘hew to the 
line, let chips fall where they may.’ Mindful that ‘the agent 
is but the instrument of the principal,’ why should Colonel 
Drake wear the laurels in this instance? Paid a salary to 
carry out Bissell’s plan of boring an artesian well, he spent 
sixteen months getting the hole down seventy feet. For a 
man who ‘had visions’ and ‘a clear conception’ his movements 
were inexplicably slow. He encountered obstacles, but salt- 
wells had been drilled hundreds of feet without either a steam- 
engine or professional ‘borer.’ The credit of suggesting the 
driving pipe to overcome the quicksand is justly his due. The 
credit of suggesting the boring of the well belongs to George 
H. Bissell. The company hired Drake, Drake hired Smith, 
Smith did the work. . . . If the long-talked-of monument 
to commemorate the advent of the petroleum era ever be 
erected, it should bear in boldest capitals the names of Samuel | 
M. Kier and George H. Bissell.” 
The foregoing somewhat lengthy quotations are justified be- 
cause they deal with a critical period in the oil and gas industry 
of the world. We may now pass over all subsequent historical 
events very rapidly. From the inception of the industry on 
Oil creek in Pennsylvania, the field of operation spread north- 
ward into northern Pennsylvania, across the border line into 
New York, and thence into Canada, westward and northwest- 
ward into Ohio and Michigan, and ultimately into Indiana, and 
southward into West Virginia. The developments already 
mentioned in Kentucky increased until we now have consid- 
erable output from that state. Many states to the west beyond 
Kansas also are producers of considerable note. Oil is now 
being produced in Colorado, Utah, Wyoming; while the oil- 
fields of California surpassed those of any other state in the 
Union in productiveness very recently. Every one is familiar 
with the wonderful wells at Beaumont, Tex., and at points in 
Louisiana. How much of the remaining portions of Texas 
and the Gulf coast area in general is productive can only be 
surmised at the present time. For years oil has been obtained 
in sufficient quantity to support a small refinery at Corsicana. 
Recent operations beyond the Rio Grande, in Mexico, lead 
some to hope that there a field of great importance may be de- 
veloped. 
