can be put into barrels and sent to market. A large amount of tankage at the wells renders the market more steady and regular, as it can be kept on hand, and not forced on the market for want of a place of storage. This, together with the amount of capital now thrown into the oil trade, has latterly prevented the panics in the market that at one time characterized it, and operated so disastrously to many persons engaged in the business.

Sometimes, in very cold weather, the separation of oil and water becomes slow and difficult, and to remedy this the steam-pipe of the engine is conducted into the tank, and by the assistance of a drum at the bottom, the heat necessary to promote this separation is obtained.

The fuel used for the engines is bituminous coal; but this is expensive, and resort is had to the use of the gas that escapes from the well. In some wells this is amply sufficient for the purpose, in others it answers in part, the lack being supplemented by coal. The apparatus for collecting the gas is very simple. The oil and gas together, as they come from the well, are received in the top of a barrel or hogshead. A pipe from near the bottom conveys the oil to the tank, and another from near the top conducts the gas to the fire-chamber in the engine. The pipes are so regulated that about the proper amount of space is preserved at the top of the barrel to receive the gas, the pressure of the oil forcing it to the fire-chamber. The only danger to be guarded against is fire, but, as yet, this has not proved a formidable danger, and the plan works to very great advantage.

NEW FEATURE.

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CHAPTER XI.

FLOWING WELLS.

THE business of boring and pumping was proceeding regularly and encouragingly, when a new feature presented itself that was most startling, and, in some respects, disastrous. Wells were being bored along Oil creek, the Allegheny, French creek, and their tributaries, and were in all stages of development. Some had simply erected their derricks, some were an hundred feet in the rock, and others actually pumping, when the change came that wrought ruin to the hopes of many an ardent operator.

In the Oil creek region, some of the smaller wells having been exhausted, resort was had to deeper boring. One hopeful theorist imagined that if the desirable fluid came from a very great depth, it might be good policy to seek it in a stratum still nearer its rocky home. So down he penetrated, regardless of the "fine show of oil" that presented itself by the way, until, at the depth of five hundred feet in the rock, a vein of mingled oil and water was reached that literally forced the boring implements from the well. The oil continued to flow with a constant stream, after this sudden exodus of the implements, rising to a height of sixty feet above the surface of the ground, and was occasionally accompanied by a roaring sound, like the Geysers of Iceland.

142

ANXIETY FOR A FLOWING WELL.

Here was a new feature in oil operations. Heretofore the production had been the result of slow and painful pumping, and this at the rate of a few barrels per day; here was a spontaneous yield of hundreds of barrels daily, without expense or labor. Was it possible to continue this inexpensive process? Was it possible to carry on the trade by simply perforating the rocky crust, and then trusting to the mysterious forces of nature to pour forth the petroleum in indefinite quantities? It seemed so from this exhibition, and yet, if it were so, a complete revolution must take place in the business. Oil would become cheap as water, and the business become at once unprofitable. Notwithstanding all this, the idea was a brilliant one, and men seized upon it with avidity. The idea of flowing wells for the spontaneous production of petroleum, once inaugurated, must be pursued at once, and with persistent energy. There was not only a spontaneous yield, but a yield in enormous quantities. So a "pumping well," as it was called, was voted a slow institution, and parties who had been satisfied with the old order of things, and were growing rich on the proceeds of pumping, renewed the operation of boring near their old sites, and many, at the depth of the first flowing well, met with like success. Parties also, that were boring, continued on in spite of all oil indications, to the depth of five hundred feet and beyond, and many of them were rewarded by opening the way to veins of oil and gas that gushed forth spontaneously and continuously. Every man on the creek was anxious to have a flowing well, although the product might remain useless upon his hands. The dark green fluid represented wealth; it had made many rich, and large quantities were desirable in any event.

EFFECTS ON THE TRADE.

143

But the operation of these wells was disastrous to the trade generally during the first six months of their flow. Their enormous yield had the effect of bringing down the price of petroleum to so low a figure that pumping wells were at once closed. The proceeds would not pay for the fuel-scarcely even for the payment of the workmen, and at once the entire business, with the exception of a few wells at Franklin and French creek, that yielded heavy lubricating oil, was confined to the valley of Oil creek, then the region of flowing wells. Oil at once fell to a price much below that of the barrel that contained it. Parties sending their barrels, or "packages," as the oil men call them, to these flowing wells could have them filled at one cent per gallon, or less if they had the heart to ask it. It could be bought for less at the wells than common creek water has latterly been selling at in the streets of Franklin.

Of course, there was at once a panic in the oil region. Whereunto would this matter grow? Some wise heads predicted that in a few days the stream would cease to flow, and sat down to watch its decreasing volume, growing" small by degrees, and beautifully less." But this was of no avail. The stream seemed to increase rather than decrease. It was like the countryman sitting upon a dry-goods box on Broadway waiting until the crowd got by. Others, equally wise, thought they saw in this new phase of things not only disaster, but utter and total ruin to the oil business. The market would be overstocked; it would not be worth an ambitious man's attention; the ship was sinking, and must be abandoned at once. One extreme generally follows another, and persons who had a few weeks before considered the oil business the great, hopeful business of

144

PHILOSOPHY OF FLOWING WELLS.

the, age now condemned it as the prince of humbugs, and Venango county the great "Vanity Fair" of the earth,

"So swift trod sorrow on the heels of joy!"

On the Allegheny and French creek, wells were abandoned, leases forfeited, and machinery removed as the operators shook the dust from their feet, as a testimony against the wicked and deceptive region where they had spent their money for nought. There was some ground for this discouragement, still it was not altogether justifiable. It would have been better to take in the sails, bolt down the hatches, and wait until the storm had passed by; or at least attempted to weather it out.

These flowing wells were found at the depth of about five hundred feet in the rock, and usually in what is termed the "third sand rock." They are tubed as other wells, with the exception that the pump attachment is wanting, and the tube has an elbow some eight feet from the derrick floor, from which the discharge pipe leads into the tank. In some of these wells the stream is pure oil, in others mingled oil and water, in each instance accompanied, of course, by gas, that is the motive power. The quality of the stream, whether pure oil or oil and water, depends, as will be hereafter seen, on the particular point in the vein perforated, in relation to the cavity containing the oil.

The philosophy of flowing wells may be readily understood from a diagram. We may imagine cavities in the rock beneath of every conceivable form and size. The strata that is generally termed the oil bearing rock may have been contorted and broken by some internal convulsions of nature, through the agency of heat and gas, so as to form caverns of great extent. These caverns have