PIPE LINES. A form of transportation that may be used for any liquid or gas, but which is principally employed to transport the petroleum and natural gas products from the wells in the oil fields to the refineries and the markets or points of utilization, with the mini mum of expense. Soon after the discovery of petroleum in the United States the transporta tion of the product formed an important factor in the problems relating to its profitable market ing. Although petroleum was discovered as early as 1829, up to 1870 the use of wooden and iron tank cars prevailed, entailing a great cost in transportation and resulting in a compara tively slow disposal of the product. To lessen the cost of transportation, the practicability of employing a conduit of wrought-iron piping was suggested by Gen. S. D. Karns of Parkersburg, W. Va., as early as 1860, but pipe lines were not successfully operated until 10 years later. Karns' idea involved the principle of gravity; he proposed to lay a line of pipe from the wells at Burning Springs to Parkersburg, a distance of about 36 miles, and allow the oil to flow down to the shipping points on the Ohio River. Through a lack of enterprise more than any other reason, the line was never laid. His idea was taken up and developed by J. L. Hutchin son of New York, who in 1862 laid a pipe line from the Tarr Farm wells to the refinery at Plumer, Pa. As the wells and the refinery were situated on the opposite sides of the hill, the pipe line formed a siphon, which, under the effect of the high air pressure, leaked freely at the joints, and resulted in its final abandonment. He laid another line in 1863, from the well at Sherman to a refinery three miles distant. In this case the oil was pumped from the well to the refinery, but as in the former case the leak age at the joints was too great to allow the line to be a practical success. Between 1865 and 1870 a great many attempts were made to em ploy this method of transportation in the vari ous oil fields throughout the country, with more or less success, in spite of the opposition of those interested in the employment of wagons and tank-cars, but the unqualified success of the line laid by Samuel Von Syckle of Titusville, Pa., from Pithole City to Miller's Farm, in
1865, induced the creation of numerous pipe line companies, and the extension of the lines to distant shipping points. In 1875 the Penn sylvania Transportation Company, authorized to lay a pipe line from the oil regions to tide water, laid one from the lower oil regions to Pittsburgh, a distance of about 60 miles. Its operation was highly successful. The refineries. heretofore located near the wells, were re moved to various ports on the seaboard, and on the shores of the Great Lakes, and the connect ing pipe lines were rapidly laid. By 1877 10 or 12 pipe lines were being operated through the oil regions, while the laying of long-distance lines was commenced by the United Pipe Lines Company. By 1892 the National Transit Com pany controlled several great trunk lines. The great competition reduced the profits derived from pipe-line transportation and led to the consolidation of the companies, and by 1902 two companies, of which the National Transit Com pany was the larger, controlled all of the pipe lines in the United States. It is estimated that the National Transit Company, handling the output of the Standard Oil Company, exclu sively, controlled in 1904 about 40,000 miles of pipe line and in 1918 over 50,000 miles. Of foreign countries, Russia has built the most pipe lines. The first line was laid in 1879. from the Baku wells to a refinery situated at a dis tance of about nine miles. By 1895 over 20 pipe lines were in operation, and long-distance lines were later constructed. The line from Milchoilov to Batum, laid in 1900-01, was orig inally 145 miles in length, but now connects with Baku, a total of about 550 miles. Several hun dred miles of pipe lines have been laid in Mexico, and doubtless will be extended as political disturbances subside. See PETROLEUM.