Oil is found in Pennsylvania in oil-bearing sand-rocks, which are
considered as the reservoirs in which the distilled product has found
a permanent lodgment. The depth of the oil-sand or sand-rock in this
state is from 800 to 1,900 feet. There are often several strata, one
above the other, containing oil.
It is the uniform experience that the lightest oils are found in
the lowest sandstones, while the heaviest oils are drawn from the
shallowest wells; and as we approach the surface where it is gathered
from the pools dug to the depth of only a few feet, it becomes sticky,
semi-fluid, and finally a solid asphalt.
Man made no attempt to bore a deep hole through soil and rock, hundreds
of feet down, to reach oil, until the summer of 1859. The first
oil company was formed in 1854, with Mr. George H. Bissell at its
head, which bored the first oil well in the summer of 1859 under the
direction of E. L. Drake. It was about the middle of June that "Uncle
Billy Smith" and his two sons arrived in Titusville, on Oil Creek, Pa.,
the scene of operations.
"The pipe was successfully driven to the rock, thirty-six feet, and
about the middle of August the drill was started. The drillers averaged
about three feet a day, making slight 'indications' all the way down.
Saturday afternoon, August 28, 1859, as Mr. Smith and his boys
were about to quit for the day, the drill dropped into one of those
crevices, common alike in oil and salt borings, a distance of about six
inches, making a total depth of the whole well sixty-nine and one-half
feet. They withdrew the tools, and all went home till Monday morning.
On Sunday afternoon, however, 'Uncle Billy' went down to reconnoiter,
and peering in he could see a fluid within eight or ten feet of the
surface. He plugged one end of a bit of rain-water spout and let it
down with a string, and drew it up filled with petroleum.
"That night the news reached the village, and Drake when he came down
next morning bright and early found the old man and his boys proudly
guarding the spot, with several barrels of petroleum standing about.
The pump was at once adjusted, and the well commenced producing at
the rate of about twenty-five barrels a day. The news spread like a
prairie fire, and the village was wild with excitement. The country
people round about came pouring in to see the wonderful well. Mr.
Watson jumped on a horse and hurried straightway to secure a lease of
the spring on the McClintock farm, near the mouth of the creek. Mr.
Bissell, who had made arrangements to be informed of the result by
telegraph, bought up all the Pennsylvania oil-stock it was possible to
get hold of, and four days afterwards was at the well."
This memorable strike ushered in the petroleum era. It now only
remained to develop this "bonanza." The condition of things on Oil
Creek in 1865 is given as follows: "The surface of the whole country
was saturated with oil from the leaking barrels, the overflow and
enormous wastage from the wells before they could be got under control,
and from the leakage and bursting of tanks. The peculiar odor of
petroleum pervaded everything; the air for miles was fairly saturated
with it; nothing else was thought of; nothing else was talked about.
Land was sold at thousands of dollars per acre. Fortunes were made and
lost in a day. Oil companies with high-sounding names were organized
almost without number, absorbing millions of money; many companies
were formed without the shadow of a basis for operations, and many
persons who were as covetous as they were ignorant, were drawn into the
maelstrom of speculative excitement and hopelessly ruined. No parallel
in the history of speculation in this country can be found, excepting,
perhaps, that which occurred during the 'California gold fever' of
1849."
The Pennsylvania oil region and the Russian oil region are the two
greatest centers of petroleum in the world. The latter has its center
at Baku, on the Caspian Sea. The following interesting state of affairs
at Baku in 1872 is given by Major Marsh:
"The afternoon was devoted to the great natural wonders of Baku,
petroleum and the everlasting fires. At Surakhani the whole country
is saturated with petroleum; on making a hole in the ground the gas
escapes, on lighting which it burns for a very long while, one of the
few spots on earth where this phenomenon can be seen. When there is no
wind the flame is dull and small, but in a gale it roars and leaps up
eight or ten feet. There are two naphtha refining establishments at
Surakhani, the furnaces of which are entirely heated by the natural
gas, which is collected as it rises out of the ground in an iron tank
and led off by pipes. At night the whole place is lighted in the same
manner, by ordinary gas burners attached to the walls. On returning
home in the evening we saw the silent waste, lit up by various fires,
each surrounded by a group of wild Tartars cooking their food by its
heat.
"We shall have occasion further on to furnish more particular
information respecting the enormous yield of the wells around Baku, and
therefore in this connection only incidentally allude to the statement
of the geographer, who notices the 'seven hundred oil wells' which have
all been drilled, none of which shows any signs of exhaustion, and says
that 'immense loss is caused by the ignorance of those engaged in the
trade. Thus a well at Balakhani, yielding 36,571 barrels of naphtha
daily, ran waste for four weeks before reservoirs could be prepared to
receive the oil.'"
A celebrated Russian scientist, after a visit to Baku in 1882, said:
"Comparing results achieved in the two countries on one side and the
average depth and total number of wells on the other, it may justly
be stated that the natural petroleum wells of Baku, as far as our
knowledge goes, have no parallel in the world."
The statement concerning the enormous yield from some of the wells of
this district may well challenge our credulity. The following graphic
description of the bursting forth of the great Droojba fountain is from
an eyewitness and is given in the words of Mr. Charles Marvin: "In
America there are over 25,000 petroleum wells; Baku possesses 400, but
a single one of these 400 wells has thrown up as much oil in a day as
nearly the whole of the 25,000 in America put together. This is very
wonderful, but a more striking fact is that the copiousness of the well
should have ruined its owners and broken the heart of the engineer
who bored it after having yielded enough oil in four months to have
realized in America at least one million sterling. In Pennsylvania that
fountain would have made its owner's fortune. There is $50,000 worth
of oil flowing out of the well every day. Here it has made the owner
a bankrupt (on account of the damage done by the oil to surrounding
property). These words were addressed to me by an American petroleum
engineer as I stood alongside of the well that had burst the previous
morning and out of which the oil was flowing twice as high as the
Great Geyser in Iceland with a roar that could be heard several miles
round. The fountain was a splendid spectacle and it was the largest
ever known at Baku. When the first outburst took place the oil had
knocked off the roof and part of the sides of the derrick, but there
was a beam left at the top, against which the oil broke with a roar in
its upward course and which served in a measure to check its velocity.
The derrick itself was 70 feet high and the oil and the sand, after
bursting through the roof and sides, flowed three times higher, forming
a grayish-black fountain, the column clearly defined on the southern
side, but merging into a cloud of spray thirty yards broad on the
other. The strong southerly wind enabled us to approach within a few
yards of the crater on the former side and to look down into the sandy
basin from around about the bottom of the derrick, where the oil was
bubbling and seething round the stalk of the oil-shoot like a geyser.
The diameter of the tube up which the oil was rushing was 10 inches. On
issuing from this the fountain formed a clearly defined stem about 18
inches thick and shot up to the top of the derrick, where, in striking
against the beam, which was already half-worn through by friction, it
got broadened out a little. Thus continuing its course more than 200
feet high, it curled over and fell in a dense cloud to the ground on
the northern side, on a sand bank, over which the olive-colored oil ran
in innumerable channels toward the lakes of petroleum that had been
formed on the surface of the estate. Now and again the sand flowing up
with the oil would obstruct the pipe or a stone would clog the course;
then the column would sink for a few seconds lower than 200 feet, but
rise directly afterward with a burst and a roar to 300 feet.... Some
idea of the mass of matter thrown up from the well could be formed by
a glance at the damage done on the south side in twenty-four hours; a
vast shoal of sand was formed, which buried to the roof some magazines
and shops and blocked to the height of six or seven feet all the
neighboring derricks within a distance of 50 yards.... Standing on the
top of the sand shoal we could see where the oil, after flowing through
a score of channels from the ooze, formed in the distance or lower
ground a whole series of oil lakes, some broad enough and deep enough
in which to row a boat. Beyond this the oil could be seen flowing away
in a broad channel toward the sea. This celebrated well, from the best
estimates that could be made, gushed forth its oil treasure at the
rate of 2,000,000 gallons a day from a depth of 574 feet."
About the year 1858 oil was discovered in Berksville, Tenn., on the
Cumberland River. It was called rock oil and was hawked about the
streets as a sure cure for rheumatism. About 1866 there was a company
formed to develop the petroleum then so-called. The transportation from
Berksville to market was so dear that the company was unsuccessful.
At Glasgow, twelve miles from Cave City, Ky., near the Mammoth Cave,
there was a well, and a transportation trough was suggested by Mr. Geo.
Northrup, which was never used. But the suggestion finally led up to
the subsequent use of pipe lines for transporting the oil. The first
oil used was at the head-waters of the Cumberland River. It was sold
in a crude state and was not then used for illuminating purposes. A
few years afterwards, when it was discovered in Pennsylvania, it was
so used, although still in a comparatively crude condition. The price
of oil was then about thirty-five cents a gallon at retail, or to the
consumer. It has since been sold to the consumer at as low a price as
seven cents a gallon.
The Standard Oil Company owned the first pipe lines that transported
oil from the Pennsylvania oil fields to the seacoast. It was then and
still is the only company that has furnished the best oil product. The
American oil is said to be at least twenty-five per cent. superior to
the Russian article. It is of a higher grade and commands, naturally, a
higher price.
It is assumed that there must still be great quantities of oil in the
rock formation of the earth. The substance is absorbed by the rocks
where deposited and does not evaporate, therefore it would long ago
have disappeared by absorption were it not that there must be vast
areas of it still lying ready to be pumped to the surface.
The odor of the petroleum first discovered was similar to that of
the cheap bituminous coal. In this respect there has been a great
improvement, although there is yet room for the removal of what, to
many, is a very unpleasant odor.
In the fall of 1865 the narrator, Mr. George Northrup, at that time a
young Chicago business man, still living in that city, believing that
vast fortunes could be made in the oil regions, caught the fever, and
ascertaining that new fields were being developed in Glasgow, Ky., went
there with $5,000 capital, intending to invest it, fancying that amount
would be sufficient to buy oil land and develop the same. Arriving
at Cave City, on the L. & N. Railway, he was lucky enough to get a
seat on the stage coach that ran to Glasgow. The only public inn was
filled to overflowing, and he was obliged, with others, to sleep on
the office floor of the hotel. Two miles before reaching the town the
odor from the wells in operation affected him to such a degree that he
confesses that no bouquet of flowers ever seemed to him sweeter. After
dining at the hotel he was approached by a score of speculators who
inquired of him whether he desired to invest in oil territory, which
was held at from $25,000 to $200,000 an acre. He said that he would
investigate the next day, became disgusted and immediately disappeared.
The principal objection to the territory was the absolute absence of
transportation. It was then that he suggested the use of a trough for
the transportation of the oil to Glasgow, a distance of twelve miles,
since which time it has been carried by pipe from the oil fields of
Pennsylvania to the Atlantic Ocean.