Excavating for the Franklin canal in 1832, on the north bank of French Creek, opposite “the infant industry” of Hulings forty years previously, the workmen were annoyed by a persistent seepage of petroleum, execrating it as a nuisance. A well dug on the flats ten years later, for water, encountered such a glut of oil that the disgusted wielder of the spade threw up his job and threw his besmeared clothes into the creek! When the oil-excitement invaded the county-seat the greasy well was drilled to the customary depth and proved hopelessly dry! At Slippery Rock, in Beaver county, oil exuded abundantly from the sandy banks and bed of the creek, failing to pan out when wells were put down. Something of the same sort occurred in portions of Lawrence county and on the banks of many streams in different sections of the country. A geological expert endeavors to make it as clear as mud in this manner:
“‘Surface shows’ have been the fascination of many. The places of most copious escape to the surface were regarded as the favored spots where ‘the drainage from the coal measures, in defiance of the laws of gravity and hydro-dynamics, had obligingly deposited itself. Such shows’ were always illusory. A great ‘surface show’ is a great waste; where nature plays the spendthrift she retains little treasure in her coffers. The production of petroleum in quantities of economical importance has always been from reservoirs in which nature has been hoarding it up, instead of making a superficial and deceptive display of her wealth.”
Applying this method, the place to find petroleum is where not a symptom of it is visible! An honest Hibernian, asked his opinion of a notorious falsifier, answered that “he must be chock-full ov truth, fur bedad he niver lets any ov it git out!” The above explanation is of this stripe. “Flee to the mountains of Hepsidam” rather than attempt to bore for oil in localities having “shows” of the very thing you are after! These dreadfully deceptive “shows” show that the oil has got out and emptied the “reservoirs in which nature had been hoarding it up!” This is a pretty rough joke on poor deluded nature! How could these “surface shows” have strayed off anyhow, unless connected with reservoirs of genuine petroleum at the outset? The first wells on Oil Creek and at Franklin were drilled beside “surface shows” which revealed the existence of petroleum and supplied Cary, August, McClintock and Hulings with the coveted oil. These wells produced petroleum “in quantities of economical importance,” demonstrating that “such shows were not always illusory.” Is nature buncoing petroleum-seekers by hanging out a Will-o’-the-Wisp signal where there is “little treasure in her coffers?” The failures at Slippery Rock and divers other places resulted from the fact that the seepages had traveled considerable distances to find breaks in the rocks that would permit of the “most copious escape.”
Central and South America are fairly stocked with petroleum-indications. In the early days of the Panama Railroad and during the construction of the ill-fated canal numerous efforts were made to explore the coal-regions of the Atlantic, in proximity to the ports of Colon and Panama. These researches led to the discovery of bituminous shales and lignite near the port of Boca del Toro, on the Caribbean Sea. The map of Colombia shows a great indenture on the Atlantic Coast of the department of Cauca, formed by the Gulfo de Uraba, or Darian del Nord. Into this gulf flow the Atrato, Arboletes, Punta de Piedra and many small streams. Explorations on the Gulf of Uraba and its tributaries disclosed extensive strata of “oil-rock” and “oil-springs” near the Rio Arboletes. The largest of forty of these springs has a twelve-inch crater, which gushes oil sufficient to fill a six-inch pipe. Near this Brobdignagian spring is a petroleum-pond sixty feet in diameter and from three to ten feet deep. The flow of these oil-springs deserves the attention of geologists and investors. They lie at a distance of one to three miles from the shores of the gulf. The oil is remarkably pure, passing through a bed of coral, which seems to act as a filter and refiner. A proper survey of the oil-region of the Uraba would be interesting from a scientific and an industrial standpoint. The proper development of its possibilities might result in the control of the petroleum-market of South America. The climate is too sultry for the display of seal sacques and fur-overcoats, a palm-hat constituting the ordinary garb of the average citizen. This providential dispensation eliminates dudes and tailor-made girls, stand-up collars and bifurcated skirts from the domestic economy of the happy Isthmians.
In the canton of Santa Elena, Ecuador, embracing the entire area of country between the hot springs of San Vicinte and the Pacific coast, petroleum is found in abundance. It is of a black color, its density varies, it is considered superior to the Pennsylvania product and is entirely free from offensive odor. Little has been done towards working these wells. The people are unacquainted with the proper method of sinking them and no well has exceeded a few feet in depth. Geologists think, when the strata of alumina and rock are pierced, reservoirs will be found in the huge cavities formed by volcanic convulsions of the Andes. Venezuela is in the same boat.
From the Chira to the Fumbes river, a desert waste one-hundred-and-eighty miles in length and fifteen miles in width, lying along the coast between the Pacific ocean and the Andes, the oil-field of Peru is believed to extend. For two centuries oil has been gathered in shallow pits and stored in vats, precisely as in Pennsylvania. The burning sun evaporated the lighter parts, leaving a glutinous substance, which was purified and thickened to the consistency of sealing-wax by boiling. It was shipped to southern ports in boxes and used as glazing for the inside of Aguardiente jars. The Spanish government monopolized the trade until 1830, when M. Lama purchased the land. In 1869 Blanchard C. Dean and Rollin Thorne, Americans, “denounced” the mine, won a lawsuit brought by Lama and drilled four wells two-hundred-and-thirty feet deep, a short distance from the beach. Each well yielded six to ten barrels a day, which deeper drilling in 1871-2 augmented largely. Frederic Prentice, the enterprising Pennsylvania operator, secured an enormous grant in 1870, bored several wells—one a thousand-barreler—erected a refinery, supplied the city of Lima with kerosene and exported considerable quantities to England and Australia. The war with Chili compelled a cessation of operations for some years. Dr. Tweddle, who had established a refinery at Franklin, tried to revive the Peruvian fields in 1887-8. He drilled a number of wells, refined the output, enlisted New-York capital and shipped cargoes of the product to San Francisco. Hon. Wallace L. Hardison, who represented Clarion in the Legislature and operated at Bradford and in California, is now exploring the Peruvian field for flowing oil-wells and gold-nuggets. Qualified judges have no doubt that, “in the sweet-bye-and-bye,” the oleaginous goose may hang altitudinum in Peru.
A larger percentage of the oil-product of the United States is sent abroad than of any other except cotton, while nearly every home in the land is blessed with petroleum’s beneficent light. America has toed the mark so grandly that the petroleum-industry is the one circus bigger inside the canvas than on the posters. Beginning with 1866, the exports of illuminating oils were doubled in 1868, again in 1871, again in 1877 and again in 1891. The average exports per week in 1894 were as much as for the entire year 1864. Not less impressive is the marvelous reduction in the price of refined, so that it has found a welcome everywhere. Export-oil averaged, in 1861, 61½ cents per gallon; in 1871, 23⅝ cents per gallon; in 1881, 8 cents per gallon; in 1891, 6⅞ cents per gallon; in 1892, 6 cents per gallon; in 1894, 5⅙ cents per gallon, or one-twentieth that in 1861. But this decrease, great as it is, does not represent the real reduction in the price of oil, as the cost of the barrel is included in these prices. A gallon of bulk-oil cost in 1861 not less than 58 cents; in 1894, not more than 3½ cents, or hardly one-seventeenth. In January, 1871, the price was 75 cents; in January, 1894, one-twenty-fifth that of thirty-three years before. Consumers have received the benefit of constant improvements and reductions in prices, while thirteen-hundred-million dollars have come from abroad to this country for petroleum.
The glimmer has broadened and deepened into noon-day brightness.
THE BABY HAS GROWN.
Production and Prices of Crude Petroleum in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and