OIL ON THE
PENINSULA OF GASPE.
Petroleum has long been known to exist in considerable quantity in the Gaspe Peninsula, at the extreme eastern end of Quebec. The Petroleum Oil-Trust, organized by a bunch of Canadians to operate the district, put down eight wells in 1893, finding a light green oil. The Trust continued its borings in 1894, on the left bank of the York River, south of the anticlinal of Tar Point. Several of the ten wells yielded moderately, and operations extended to the portion of Gaspe Basin called Mississippi Brook. One well in that section, completed in July of 1897, flowed from a depth of fifteen-hundred feet. Hundreds of barrels were lost before the well could be controlled. Its first, pumping produced forty barrels, and two others in the vicinity are of a similar stripe. The results thus far are deemed sufficiently encouraging to warrant further tests in hope of developing an extensive field. The oil comes from a coarse rock of sandy texture, and in color and gravity resembles the Pennsylvania article. The formation around the newest strikes is nearly flat, while the shallow wells in the section first prospected were bored at a sharp angle, to keep in touch with the dip of the rock, just as diamond drills follow the gold-bearing ledges in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Crossing the continent, oil has been tapped in the gold-diggings of British Columbia, although in amounts too small to be important commercially.
John Shaw, whose gusher brought the “gum-beds” of Enniskillen into the petroleum-column, narrowly escaped anticipating Drake three years. Shaw removed from Massachusetts to Canada in 1838, and was regarded as a visionary schemer. In 1856 he sought to interest his neighbors in a plan to drill a well through the rock in search of the reservoir that supplied Bear Creek with a thick scum of oil. They hooted at the idea and proposed to send Shaw to the asylum. This tabooed the subject and postponed the advent of petroleum until the end of August, 1859.
Not content to crown Alaska with mountains of gold and valleys of yellow nuggets, inventors of choice fables have invested the hyperborean region with an exhaustless store of petroleum. In July of 1897 this paragraph, dated Seattle, went the rounds of the press:
“What is said to be the greatest discovery ever made is reported from Alaska. Some gold-prospectors several months ago ran across what seemed to be a lake of oil. It was fed by innumerable springs and the surrounding mountains were full of coal. They brought supplies to Seattle and tests proved it to be of as high grade as any ever taken out of Pennsylvania wells. A local company was formed and experts sent up. They have returned on the steamer Topeka, and their report has more than borne out first reports. It is stated there is enough oil and coal in the discovery to supply the world. It is close to the ocean; in fact, the experts say that the oil oozes out into the salt-water.”
William H. Seward’s purchase from Russia, for years ridiculed as good only for icebergs and white-bears, may be credited with Klondyke placers and vast bodies of gold-bearing quartz, but a “lake of oil” is too great a stretch of the long bow. If “a lake of oil” ever existed, the lighter portions would have evaporated and the residue would be asphaltum. The story “won’t hold water” or oil.
A thief broke into a Bradford store and pilfered the cash-drawer. Some months later the merchant received an unsigned letter, containing a ten-dollar bill and this explanatory note: “I stole seventy-eight dollars from your money-drawer. Remorse gnaws at my conscience. When remorse gnaws again I will send you some more.”
It is not surprising that evil travels faster than good, since it takes only two seconds to fight a duel and two months to drill an oil-well at Bradford.
“The Producers’ Consolidated Land-and-Petroleum-Company,” the formidable title over the Bradford office of the big corporation, is apt to suggest to observant readers the days of old long sign.
