ROCA-OIL, or Petroleum, has so wonderfully and so suddenly assumed a prominent position among our mineral resources, for we can assign it no other position, that the statician has been unable to keep pace with the development ; and, while the production has grown from little to much, at a rate beyond precedent, the demand and consumption has been equal. The increase of this trade is one of the wonders of the age. It reaches to almost every civilized city or country throughout the world. In almost every family, outside of the cities, it forces its way as the cheapest and most pleasing light that can be produced, except that from gas, and in all the trades and mechanical professions it has made a footing. Yet, within five years, it was hardly known as an article of commerce ; but, within that brief time, it has become a leading article in the foreign trade of the United States. Though it has existed in the bowels of the earth for untold ages before the creation of man, and betrayed its presence by thousands of signs in as many places, its availability was reserved for the present necessity,—the requirements of the present times.
The production of coal-oil and petroleum has become a permanent pursuit,—as much a business as the mining of coal, or the production of iron; and one that must continue to increase, but with more reliability and practical knowledge than in the past. While we are supposed to grow wiser and more skilled by experience and the aid of science, we appear to be less prudent and more excitable. The number of dupes who were fleeced by the oil speculation are legions; yet the smallest amount of prudence would have saved the "sharpest New Yorker," or the "smartest down Easter" from misfortune in courting the favors of the fickle goddess, called no more Fortune, but Petrolea.
A reckless trust to chance or luck was the governing principle a year ago, in mak ing investments in oil stocks. No gambling could have been more precarious ; be cause both Fortune and Mercury, the god of rogues, were to be waited on and trusted. More prudence and less haste might have saved $500,000,000 to the money bags of capital, but it would have been lost to the barren hills of Venango and the hungry speculator. While part of it has been sunk in bottomless oil wells to the vision of hapless stockholders, it nevertheless bore fruit, and has gone forth among the people, circulating from pocket to pocket, building cities, railroads and engines, and creating oil kings from the poor dwellers of those once despised barrens, now ycleped Petrolea.
Henceforth, perhaps, experience and practical skill may be made useful in seek ing for oil; while science can, if put to the task, unravel many of the mysteries which now seal those deep fountains of oil and gas from the eye and mind of thou sands, whose anxious ken would penetrate their secrets. But ordinary prudence
will be sufficient, if practiced, to make the production of petroleum as certain and successful as the mining of coal, or the many mechanical pursuits of the day, Those who are willing to risk a few thousands, with the chance of realizing two or three hundred per cent., may still experiment, as they will, and with benefit to the country by new developments ; but those who would invest in the business with the expecta tions of realizing a fair profit, will select their territory with great care, and sink their wells with economy—persevering until rewarded. There is a wide field for the business,—from the Northwest of Pennsylvania to Eastern and Western Kentucky, if not farther,—and from the waters of the Alleghany and Ohio to within a hundred miles of the eastern escapemennt of the Alleghany mountains. Within this wide area, there are thousands of localities where oil may be found in paying quantities, and in all probability some spots as productive as Venango. Experienced oil men will not seek oil on the tops of mountains, nor expect to find much in the coal measures, above the mill-stone grit. But, within the territory mentionZd, there are thousands of places, not yet developed, where oil can and will be found, with remuneration to the finder.
In Chapter XXX, on Petroleum, we gave our views on the peculiarities of rock oil, and the ways and means of judging of its available existence. But we may add here, that the flow of gas from oil wells ought to be stopped or checked, if possible, both in the course of boring and afterwards ; since there can be no doubt but that much of the oil escapes in this manner, while the gas is the motor to force up the oil, and without it a flowing well cannot exist.
Hundreds of abandoned wells are still emitting gases, and thus tapping the sources of supply and diminishing the ultimate production. When we say that more than half the oil escapes as gas, we are certainly within the fact, and can give no better illustration of the waste than to state that at least 3,000.000 barrels of oil are now escaping per annum as gas. We make this statement after a careful examination and a pretty careful estimate of the gaseous volume of hydrocarbon as compared with the fluid. Much of this waste can be checked by a careful stopping of all abandoned wells, by filling them, first with a wooden plug at the depth of a hundred feet, or more, and above that with pounded earth. The flow of gas may also be checked, in sinking wells, by several devices to fill the cavities ; but perhaps the best plan, where the flow is great, will be to reduce the gas to oil by mechanical and chemical means,—a mode of accomplishing which has been patented by the writer.