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TAR LAKE.-TEXAS.

through the waters of the sea. Perhaps the most remarkable natural fountain of petroleum of which we have knowledge, is on the Island of Trinidad, in the West Indies. It is known among the inhabitants of the island, as the Tar Lake. Bitumen in a hot state is continually boiling up, until it has formed a lake three or four miles in circumference. In the centre, or at the mouth, of the fountain, the oil is hot and liquid, but as it recedes in every direction, it gradually cools and thickens until on the shores it becomes solid. This petroleum lake is now in the hands of a London company, who will soon bring its exhaustless wealth into the market. Humboldt also reports the spontaneous product of petroleum in the West India islands to be large, and as it runs to waste, it covers a large surface of the sea with its unctuous tide. This report was made in 1799.

Many years ago, a newspaper correspondent reported that within an hundred miles of Houston, Texas, there was a small lake or pond, a quarter of a mile in circumference, in the centre of which issues a fountain of petroleum boiling up from the bottom, evidently from some fissure in the rocks, and affording an indefinite supply.

The field is large. The source of supply exhaustless. It has evidently been a product of earth from the beginning. It has been one of God's great gifts to his creatures, designed for their happiness; but kept locked up in his secret laboratory, and developed only in accordance with their necessities. And now in our own day, and in these ends of the earth, the great treasure house has been unlocked, the seal broken, and the supply furnished most abundantly.

IMPORTANT TRUTHS.

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It has always been a feature of the economy of Providence, that the stores of his bounty are brought to light just as they are needed. The minerals of earth have lain hid in its bosom until absolutely needed. Men have walked over the gold fields of the world, without discovering their value, until, in the scheme of Providence, some great change was about to take place, requiring the treasure, and then it has been brought to light. Men walked over these hills and through these Venango valleys ignorant of the precious treasure that flowed beneath, even though it was suggested by a thousand bubbling springs by the wayside, and a thousand rainbow tints upon the surface of the creeks and rivers. But, during this latter half of the nineteenth century, a call was to be made upon the treasures hidden beneath the surface of the soil. A terrible struggle was approaching, in which the nation's life should be at stake; republican institutions are to be on trial. Other nations are to be spectators of the strange and terrible conflict. Not only blood but treasure is to be poured out like water in the nation's cause, and in the cause of civil and religious liberty; and so God opens the store-houses he has prepared against the day of sore trial. The gold fields of California, and Nevada, and Idaho, and Arizona pour their riches into the nation's coffers; the fountains of petroleum gush forth in wondrous exuberance; private enterprise is rewarded; the revenue of the Government is wonderfully enlarged; exports to foreign lands prevent the drainage of the precious metals from our midst, and there is kept up a just equlibrium in the trade of the country. Who can doubt but that in the wise operations of God's Providence, the immense oil resources of the country

have been developed at this particular time, to aid in the solution of the mighty problem of the nation's destiny? The treasures of the earth all belong to the Lord, and he uses them for his own wise purposes, and for the promotion of his own glory.

CHAPTER IV.

ANTIQUITY OF THE OIL BUSINESS IN VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

THE oil region of Western Pennsylvania, and particularly Venango county, is the portion of oil producing territory that now occupies the largest share of attention. It is true that oil wells are successfully worked to a limited extent in some other counties, still Venango county has, thus far, monopolized almost the whole number of really valuable oil producing wells in this region.

As a product of this portion of the country, this remarkable substance became known to civilization sometime about the middle of the last century. The chief source of supply was on Oil creek, and was collected in small quantities by the Seneca Indians, and used by them in mixing their war paint and in the medication of wounds. In the latter capacity it became known to the earliest white settlers, and was used by them for almost all external injuries, as well as taken occasionally as an internal remedy. Still the supply was neces

sarily limited, as we shall hereafter have occasion to notice.

There are some strange facts in connection with this region, that point to a history all unwritten save in some few brief sentences, in pits and excavations, of oil operations along the valley of Oil creek, and near its mouth on the Allegheny. These detached fragments, like the remains of the Sybilline oracles, but cause us to regret more earnestly the loss of the volumes that contained the whole record. A grand and wonderful history has been that of this American Continent; but it has never been written in the archives of time. The actors in its shadowy scenes have passed away in their shadowy grandeur, leaving but dim footprints here and there to tell us they have been, and cause us to wonder at the mystery that veils their record, and to muse upon the evanescent glory of man's earthly history.

Along the valley of Oil creek are clear traces of ancient operations. Over sections embracing hundreds of acres in extent, the surface of the land has, at some remote period of time, been excavated in the form of oblong pits, from four by six, to six by eight feet in size. These pits are often from four to six feet still in depth, notwithstanding the action of rain and frost for so many years. Some of these pits appear to have been of a circular or oval form, but all to have been excavated with care, and with reference to one design. They are found in the oil region, and over the oil deposits, and in no other place; affording unmistakable evidence of their design and use. The deeper and larger pits appear to have been cribbed up with timber at the sides, in order to preserve their form, and better to adapt them to the end in view; this cribbing was

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MYSTERIOUS ORIGIN.

roughly done. The timber was deprived of its bark, halved, and rudely adjusted at the corners. In one instance, as workmen were excavating the earth preparatory to the erection of a saw mill, in a soft, marshy place, one of these circular pits was discovered in the form of a well, perhaps four feet in diameter, with the walls lined with timber set up vertically. These timbers were twelve feet in length, indicating a well of that depth. This well, of course, was filled up nearly to the surface with mud and sediment; but indicating the same design as those before described. The timber had the bark removed, but was apparently sound and free from decay. In the immediate neighborhood of this well there is about an acre covered with these ancient works. In one of these a tree was felled, upon the stump of which eighty concentric circles or growths were counted, indicating its probable age. This was half a century ago. This record of the forest trees is not unfrequent among these oil pits. Farther up the creek, upon the septa that divide them, and even in the pits themselves, trees have grown up more than one foot and a half in diameter, with as many as two hundred of these growths, indicating an antiquity ante-dating the earliest records of civilized life in this region. For centuries has this treasure been affording intimations of its presence. Before Columbus had touched these Western shores, was it gathered here, in this valley, as an article of utility or luxury, by the processes of design and labor, and with the idea of use, traffic, and emolument.

By whom were these excavations planned and these pits fashioned, that tell of the search for, and the collection of, petroleum so many years ago? Let the mighty dead that are slumbering in our valleys, and