“At eight hundred and twenty-one feet six inches a very hard stratum of slate was encountered, which we penetrated about three inches. We could get no water down the well on account of the strong flow of gas, so we could make no further progress with the drill in this hard cutting. The danger to the men was so great that they refused to work longer over the bore. We then put the four and five-eighths inch casing down to the very bottom, hoping to shut off gas, but it failed to do so.”
Terrific Pressure of Natural Gas.
Work was resumed here in 1898 (Geological Survey Report, Vol. XI, page 33a). It was thought that the flow of gas might have decreased, but on work being resumed and the hole being cleaned out “the gas which had increased in power with the cleaning of the hole cut the walls down and blew great clouds of sand and gravel higher than the derrick.” Subsequently at eight hundred and thirty-seven feet such a strong flow of gas was struck that they were obliged to suspend operations. Mr. Fraser further says in the same report:—“I proved the general excellence and utility of the gas during the season, using it for my boiler, cookstove and for lighting. I had only a one inch pipe, tapped into the side of the casing, and probably did not use the one-hundredth part of the gas coming from the bore, but there was sufficient to make all the steam necessary on my twenty-five horse-power boiler, keep fire in the stove, and also to supply a strong flare-light. The gas burned beautifully clean. In working at the bore, the screeching and hissing of the gas, when at all confined by the presence of the tools inside the casing, or from other causes, was so great that the men complained of pains in their ears and heads.”
Begged to be Excused.
When giving his evidence before the Senate committee of 1907 Mr. von Hamerstein begged to be excused from divulging results of his work in boring for petroleum in the McMurray district, as other people had entrusted their money with him in the enterprise. He said he felt at liberty to state that their works so far made him very confident that they were going to have one of the biggest petroleum fields in the world. There was no doubt he said, petroleum would be found all through that country, from Athabaska river to Peace river. He remarked that when his party was boring once they struck natural gas, and one hundred and fifty feet of salt. They went down through a hundred feet of salt, and then they abandoned it. At this particular place they went about eleven hundred feet altogether. They never went lower than eleven hundred feet.
Mr. von Hamerstein added: “As far as petroleum is concerned, I have all my money put into it, and there is other people’s money in it, and I have to be loyal. As to whether you can get petroleum in merchantable quantities, that is a matter about which I would not care to speak. I have been taking in machinery for about three years. Last year I placed about fifty thousand dollars worth of machinery in there. I have not brought it in for ornamental purposes, although it does look nice and home-like.”
In the winter of 1910, Corporal A. H. Schurer, of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police, made a patrol from Athabaska to McMurray. In his report he states:—“I visited the oil wells sunk by Baron A. von Hamerstein at Poplar island, six miles below McMurray. I could see very little with the exception of the machinery, as the snow had covered everything up. A Mr. Falkner, supposed to be representing a party of eastern capitalists, has been staking out claims between McMurray and McKay for oil, during the past two months, and I understand that he is also to prospect Clearwater river east of McMurray for petroleum and other minerals. In December last Mr. Julius Alteschul, a German, claiming to be a representative of a London, England, financial house, visited McMurray, and after having been there for a few days, stated that he had found a mineral more valuable than radium, and that as soon as Athabaska river was navigable, he would place one hundred workmen and their families at McMurray, where he intended to start an industry; what this industry was to be Mr. Alteschul did not make clear. It is the general impression that Alteschul was merely paying a visit to a much talked of place in order to find out what minerals actually existed, but did not want his mission to be known.”
Natural Gas.
Corporal Mellor states (Royal Northwest Mounted Police report of 1909) that when patrolling the buffalo country near Peace point he came across “a large natural gas spout burning in a muskeg and was informed it never goes out.”
During his examination before the select committee of the Senate in 1907 Mr. von Hamerstein drew the attention of the committee to the waste of natural oil gas at the government bore hole at Pelican portage or Pelican rapids. It was still burning. When Mr. von Hamerstein went up in the month of June, 1906, it blew about eighteen or twenty feet. About four years previously he found it was about forty feet, a vertical stream. It exploded with such force that not a hundredth part of the gas had a chance to be inflamed. The ground all around it had fallen in. Mr. von Hamerstein expressed the opinion that this is the biggest gas well on the face of the earth. He had a gas expert, a Mr. Chamberlain, from Petrolia, who told him that it was the biggest well in the world. Mr. Chamberlain operated in Indiana, Kansas, and all over the United States, and was the largest operator in the natural gas business.