IV OIL REFINING, POINT BREEZE
If any one cares to look up a copy of the Century Magazine—or it was then Scribner's—for about 1880 or 1881, there will be found in it my first published drawing of the Wonder of Work—and of this same oil refinery at Point Breeze. Now I am back in Philadelphia, years after, and I have found the same subject as full of inspiration as ever. And though the editors of that date were willing to publish my drawings of such subjects then—now they won't have them, or use those of my flatterers—I mean imitating thieves. But there is scarce an art editor left—that profession scarce exists any longer.
V OIL WELLS, ALBERTA
I have never yet found a perfectly satisfactory oil field, as a subject for the Wonder of Work. The wells are not big enough, they are all alike, and there is no smoke. I confess I once thought an oil well gushed like a geyser, hundreds of feet in the air, and, when it was not doing that, belched forth gorgeous columns and clouds of smoke. I was told that the first was prevented with difficulty, and that by dropping a match into the pipe I could easily produce the second effect—though either might cost me a million; still, the fact remains, I have yet to find a really fine oil field—and a really fine effect over it. The refineries, however, make up for the wells.
