CHAPTER XII. PETROLEUM, OR ROCK OIL. near Prome. Fifty years ago it was reported there were about 520 wells in this region, and the oil from them was used for the supply of the whole empire and many parts of India. The town of Rainanghong is the centre of the oil district, and its inhabitants are chiefly employed in manufacturing earthen jars for the oil, immense numbers of which are stacked in pyramids outside the town, like shot in an arsenal. The formation containing the oil consists of sandy clays resting on sandstones and slates. The lowest bed reached by the open wells, which are sometimes 60 feet deep, is a pale blue argillaceous slate. Under this is said to be coal (tertiary?) The oil drips from the slates into the wells, and is collected as at Bakoo. The annual product is variously stated at 412,000 hogsheads, and at 8,000,000 pounds. THE Occurrence of an oily fluid oozing in some regions from the surface of the earth, coming out with the springs of water, and forming a layer upon its surface, has been noticed from ancient times, and the oil has been collected by excavating pits and canals, and also by sinking deep wells. Bakoo, a town on the west side of the Caspian Sea in Georgia, has long been celebrated for its springs of a very pure variety of petroleum or naphtha, and the annual value of this product, according to M. Abich, is about 3,000,000 francs, and might easily be made as large again. Over a tract about 25 miles long and half a mile wide, the strata, which are chiefly argillaceous sandstones of loose texture, belonging to the medial tertiary formation, are saturated with the oil, and The Burmese petroleum has recently been hold it like a sponge. To collect it large imported into Great Britain, and is employopen wells are sunk to the depth of 16 to ed at the great candle manufactory of 20 feet, and in these the oil gathers and is Messrs. Price & Co., at Belmont and Sheroccasionally taken out. That obtained near wood. It is described as a semi-fluid naphthe centre of the tract is clear, slightly yel- tha, about the consistence of goose grease, low, like Sauterne wine, and as pure as dis- of a greenish brown color, and a peculiar, tilled oil. Toward the margins of the tract but not disagreeable odor. It is used by the the oil is more colored, first a yellowish natives, in the condition in which they obgreen, then reddish brown. In the environs tain it, as a lamp-fuel, as a preservative of of Bakoo are hills of volcanic rocks through timber against insects, and as a medicine. which bituminous springs flow out. Jets It is imported in hermetically closed metalof carburetted hydrogen are common in the lic tanks, to prevent the loss of any of its district, and salt, which is almost always constituents by evaporation. At the works found with petroleum springs, abounds in it is distilled first with steam under ordinary the neighborhood. pressure, and then by steam at successively increasing temperatures, with the following Another famous locality of natural oils is in Burmah, on the banks of the Irrawaddy, | results : Character of product. Distillate very small in quantity. Containing paraffine, but still fluid at 32°. Product which solidifies on cooling, and may be submitted to pressure. Pitchy matters. Residue of coke, and a little earthy matter in the still. Nearly all the paraffine may be separated | men are met with flowing up through fissures from the distillates by exposing these to in the rocks and spreading over the surface freezing mixtures; and the total product of in a tarry incrustation, which sometimes sothis solid hydrocarbon is estimated at 10 or 11 per cent. Many other localities might be named which furnish the natural oils upon a less extensive scale, as in Italy, France, and Switzerland. In Cuba impure varieties of bitu lidifies on cooling. In the island of Trinidad, three fourths of a mile back from the coast, is a lake called the Tar Lake, a mile and a half in circumference, apparently filled with impure petroleum and asphaltum. The latter, more or less charged in its numerous cavities with liquid bitumen, forms a solid crust around the margin of the lake, and in the centre the materials appear to be in a liquid boiling condition." The varieties contain more or less oil, and methods have been devised of extracting this; but the chief useful application of the material seems to be for coating the timbers of ships to protect them from decay. By the patented process of Messrs. Atwood of New York, the crude tar of this locality having been twice subjected to distillation, and treated with sulphuric acid and afterward with an alkali, as in the method of purifying the coal oils, is then further purified by the use of permanganite of soda or of potash. Being again distilled it yields an oil of specific gravity 0.900, which is fluid at 32° F., and boils at 600° F. lighting the street lamps in the future cities of Ohio." Several coal-beds were penetrated in sinking these wells. In north-western Pennsylvania the existence of oil in the soil along the valleys of some of the streams was known to the early settlers. One stream, in consequence of its appearance in the banks, was called Oil Creek. In other localities also it was noticed, and similar occurrences of oil were observed at some places in western Virginia and eastern Kentucky. At Tarentum above Pittsburg, oil was obtained by boring about the year 1845. Two springs were opened in boring for salt, and they have continued to yield small quantities of oil, sometimes a barrel a day. This has been used only for medicinal purposes. On Oil Creek two localities were especially noted, one close to In the United States the existence of pe- the northern line of Venango county, half a troleum has long been known, and the arti-mile below the village of Titusville, and one cle has been collected and sold for medicinal 14 miles further down the stream, a mile purposes; chiefly for an external application, above its entrance into the Alleghany river. though sometimes administered internally. All the way below the upper locality through It was formerly procured by the Seneca In- the narrow valley of the creek are ancient dians in western New York and Pennsyl- pits covering acres of ground, once dug and vania, and was hence known as Seneca or used for collecting oil after the method now Genesee oil. At various places it was rec- practised in Asia. Cleared from the mud ognized along a belt of country passing and rubbish with which they are mostly fillfrom this portion of New York across the ed, some of them are found to be supported north-west part of Pennsylvania into Ohio. at the sides with logs notched at the ends as In the last-named state it was obtained in if done by whites, and it has been supposed such quantity in the year 1819, by means by some that this is the work of the French of wells sunk for salt water, that it is a little who occupied that region the first half of the remarkable the value of the material was not last century. Others think the Indians dug then appreciated, and the means perceived the pits, and in proof of this they cite the of obtaining it to any amount. The follow- account given by Day, in his "History of ing description of the operations connected Pennsylvania," of the use of the oil by the with the salt borings then in progress on Seneca Indians as an unguent and in their the Little Muskingum, in the south-western religious worship. They mixed with it their part of the state, written in 1819, was first paint with which they anointed themselves published in the American Journal of Sci- for war; and on occasions of their most imence in 1826: "They have sunk two wells portant assemblages, as was graphically dewhich are now more than 400 feet in depth; scribed by the commandant of Fort Duone of them affords a very strong and pure quesne in a letter to General Montcalm, they water, but not in great quantity. The other set fire to the scum of oil which had collectdischarges such vast quantities of petroleum, ed on the surface of the water, and at sight or as it is vulgarly called, Seneka oil,' and of the flames gave forth triumphant shouts besides is subject to such tremendous explo- which made the hills re-echo again. In this sions of gas, as to force out all the water ceremony the commandant thought he saw and afford nothing but gas for several days, revived the ancient fire worship, such as was that they make but little or no salt. Never- once practised in Bakoo, the sacred city of theless, the petroleum affords considerable the Guebres or Fire Worshippers. profit, and is beginning to be in demand for lamps in workshops and manufactories. It affords a clear bright light, when burnt in this way, and will be a valuable article for The old maps of this portion of Pennsylvania indicate several places in Venango and Crawford counties where oil springs had been noted by the early settlers. They made some leghany river, and up the French Creek above Franklin. The summer of 1860 witnessed unwonted activity and enterprise in this hitherto quiet portion of the state, where the population had before known no other pursuits than farming and lumbering. Every farm along the deep, narrow valleys, suddenly acquired an extraordinary value, and in the vicinity of the most successful wells villages sprung up as in California during the gold excitement, and new branches of manufacture were all at once introduced for supplying to the oil men the barrels required for the oil and the tools employed in boring the wells. From Titusville to the mouth of Oil Creek, about 15 miles, the derricks of the well borers were every where seen. On the Alleghany river the number below Tidioute in Warren county, south into Venango county, showed that this portion of the district was especially productive, and the same might be said of the vicinity of the town of Franklin, both up the Alleghany river and French Creek. The wells had amounted to several hundred, or according to one published statement, to full 2000 in number before the close of the year, and from an estimate published in the Venango Spectator, (Franklin) 74 of these on the 21st of November were producing the following daily yield :— use of the oil, collecting it by spreading a woollen cloth upon the pools of water below the springs, and when the cloth was saturated with the oil wringing it out into vessels. The two springs referred to on Oil Creek furnished small quantities of oil as it was required, and from a third, twelve miles below Titusville in the middle of the creek, the owner has procured 20 barrels or more of oil in a year. In 1854 Messrs Eveleth and Bissell of New York purchased the upper spring, and leased mineral rights over a portion of the valley. They then obtained from Prof. B. Silliman, jr., of New Haven a report upon the qualities of the oil, and in 1855 organized a company in New York called the "Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company," to engage in its exploration. The same year a new company under the same name, formed in New Haven and organized under the laws of Connecticut, succeeded to the rights of the old company; but for two years they made no progress in developing the resources of the property they had acquired. In December, 1857, they concluded an agreement with Messrs. Bowditch and Drake of New Haven to undertake the search for oil. To the enterprise of Col. E. L. Drake, who removed to Titusville and prosecuted the business in the face of serious obstacles, the region is indebted for the important results which followed. After a well had been sunk and curbed near the spring, ten feet square and sixteen feet deep, boring was commenced in the spring of 1859, and on the 26th of August, at the depth of seventyone feet, the drill suddenly sank four inches, and when taken out the oil rose within five inches of the surface. At first a small pump The capacity of the barrel is 40 gallons, and threw up about 400 gallons daily. By in- at the low estimate of only 20 cents the galtroducing a larger one the flow was increased lon the total value of the daily product is to 1000 gallons in the same time. Though not far from $10,000. The depth of the the pumping was continued by steam power wells is in a few instances less than 100 feet. for months no diminution was experienced The shallowest one reported, belonging to in the flow. The success of this enterprise the Tidioute Island Oil Company, was 67 produced great excitement, and the lands up-feet deep, and its product was 30 barrels a on the creek were soon leased to parties, who undertook to bore for oil for a certain share of the product, sometimes advancing besides a moderate sum to the owner. On Oil Creek,. No. of wells. Upper Alleghany river, 20 Two Mile Run,. Total,... Prod. bbls. 485 .442 15 .139 3 64 3 35 74 .1165 day. In general the depth is from 180 to 280 feet; one well in Franklin is 502 feet in depth, and one on Oil Creek 425 feet. The deepest wells are not the most productive, and the fact of their being extended beyond the ordinary depths may generally be conAl-sidered an evidence of their failure to produce much oil. There are exceptions, however, to this, one of the deepest wells, that of Hoover and Stewart, three miles below Franklin, producing largely of excellent oil. The country was overrun by explorers for favorable sites for new wells, and borings were undertaken along the valley of the *See a pamphlet by Thomas A. Gale, published In Erie, Penn, 1860, entitled "Rock Oil in Pennsyl vania and elsewhere." |