Much has been accomplished by gas companies, who, since they became alive to the danger of loss of their investment, have been extremely watchful of their property. In West Virginia the gas companies buy the gas which has been obtained in the drilling of oil wells, thus providing a market for the waste gas and making it possible to continue the oil business and at the same time to furnish cheap gas.
Another hopeful sign is the pumping of all of the product of a well. Formerly as soon as a well dropped greatly in production it was abandoned, but now it is pumped until dry.
One method by which the gas from oil wells may be utilized consists in compressing it in steel cylinders for shipping. This in a small way has been found to be successful.
Experiments are being tried on a large scale in Ohio to prove that gas may be returned to reservoirs within the earth which are tight enough to hold it under heavy pressure.
Fuel gas made from low-grade coal is a satisfactory substitute for natural gas. Like the natural product it may be piped for long distances. Some natural gas companies have bought up the culm banks and heaps of refuse coal, so that if the natural gas becomes exhausted they can manufacture cheap gas at the mines and pipe it to the cities they now serve.
PETROLEUM
Petroleum, or rock oil, is a dark greenish brown liquid which when refined yields gasolene, naphtha, benzine, kerosene, lubricating oils, and paraffin. The name petroleum applies only to the crude petroleum as it comes from the ground, and the word oil is applied to the products obtained by refining.
The early history of the petroleum industry in this country is interesting as showing what great results spring from small beginnings. From salt wells in Pennsylvania there was an occasional flow of petroleum, but it had had no commercial value. Samuel Kier, of Pittsburg, had salt wells at Tarantum from which he had accumulated so much petroleum (fifty barrels) that he decided to try to dispose of it, but there was no market. No one knew what to do with it. He then partly refined it, making a poor quality of kerosene, and introduced a lamp with a chimney. This proved so popular that A. C. Ferris, also of Pittsburg, undertook to sell this in other cities, and these two men not only sold the fifty barrels and the other petroleum that accumulated from the salt wells, but they had created such a demand for the new light that they could not supply enough oil, and in 1859 Colonel Drake drilled at Titusville the first well solely for petroleum. In the half-century since that time nearly two billion barrels, or almost two hundred and fifty million tons, worth one and three-quarter billion dollars, have been produced.
Petroleum is now mined, or drilled, in many countries besides the United States, but the United States furnishes sixty-three barrels out of every hundred produced in the world. Russia produces twenty-one barrels, Austria four, and the East Indies three barrels, Roumania two, India and Mexico one each, Canada, Japan, Germany, Peru, and Italy each less than one barrel; so we can see that the United States is the one great producer of petroleum, and that it is to this country that we must look for the principal world supply for the present, and as far as known, for the future. Let us see, then, what we may expect the United States to do to supply this demand.
The known petroleum lands cover an area of about 8,500 square miles and are in six large fields and several smaller ones. The largest and best is the Appalachian, of which the best known is the Pennsylvania field. It has a grade of petroleum that differs from any other thus far found in the world. It is most easily converted into kerosene or lamp oil, and contains a larger proportion of such oil. It is the finest petroleum in the world, except that found in Indiana and Ohio, and that costs more to refine.