FOUNTAINS OF LIQUID GOLD.

Otago Witness, Issue 2368, 20 July 1899, Page 55

FOUNTAINS OF LIQUID GOLD.

THE ROMANCE AND RISKS OF OITJ*

j MININQ. Talk of the romance of gold-mining, why, there is more excitement, and wealth, too, in a single oil-well than in half a dozen ordinary gold mines, said a man who had "made his million" in Pennsylvanian oil* And the labour and cost of tapping these hidden lakes of 'oil ("liquid. gold," I call , them) are as nothing compared with tha expense and difficulties of a few tons of doubtful ore. • • '

Take some of the famous Baku wells, ; for instance. A hole is drilled a few hun.dfed feet deep, the" " shooter v sinks His - nitro-glycerine tubes and explodes them— and then, bang! the oil bursts forth in 1 a fountain 30ft or 50ft high, and continues ; to flow for months and years at the ra'tfc i of £10,000 a day. j In Pennsylvania, it is quite a common ex- . perience for a single well to yield 1,000,000 gallons a week; while on the Russian oilfields some wells have produced ten times this quantity. - ' " From the well -to . the refineries the oil flows through pipes, and after a simple and inexpensive treatment it is converted into the transparent oil with which we are so familiar. . I have known many farms in Pennsylvania, a few barren' acres on a. Hillside, which you could rent for fifty or a hundred dollars a year A" few weeks later you could sell the lease for £20,000 or £30,000 ; while the purchaser would draw a steady revenue of many thousands of pounds a. week from -a few oil-wells Drake Farm, for instance, was rented less than a year ago for £50 a year. -The man who leased the place found it so barret* and hopeless that he offered it to an oilland speculator for £28. This offer was declined, but accepted^ few days later by another speculator. Within six months the lease was sold for £20,000 ; and the- owner of the farm draws a reliable income of £4000 a year from royalties alone, while the leaseholder's annual revenue" cannot be less than £30,000. This is ooly-f/qne of hundreds of cases where men who have farmed a few acres of rock-land in Pennsylvania and West 'Virginia have suddenly found themselves rich beyond their wildest dreams. Only a year ago a young farmer was so much in debt that he had to leave his farm, and take over a smaller one belonging to his mother. Within a month he had found three paying wells on this new farm, one alone of which produces 5000 gal of oil an hour, or an income of something like £350G a week. You may imagine that when wealth such! as this is to be found by the simple process of making a hole in the "ground, there* are hundreds of experts in constant search, for it. Every large oil company has its small army of scouts scouring the country in search of suitable ground. Some of these men are marvellously skilful in telling where the oil lies hidden. Ona' scoub, a deaf-mute, called John Mossman, could tell infallibly by his nose where oil wells could be found ; and his rare and valuable gift brought him £100,000 in fees, aa " professional smeller." The most exciting time in well-sinkink is when the hole has been drilled tc the requisite depth and the " shooter " comes on the scene tc. liberateshrdlu cmwfyp shrdbz "the scene with his explosives to liberate th* reservoir of oil so that it may flow up the shaft. The'vsliooter," who travels through the oil districts with his can of nitro-glycerine and his shells, literally carries his life in his hands every moment of every day. A' rough jolt of the cart in which his cans of explosive are earned, and "farewell, shooter!" Horse, carl, and shooter are blown to the four winds. The shooter's method is to fill three long sections of tin tubing with nitro-glycerino ' from his cans : and each shell as it is filled is lowered to the bottom of- the iron tube. When the shells arc in position the shooter lights a squib and drops it into the well, running away as fast as his legs will carry him, and giving o warning •shout to any I others who may be near. j. A terrific explosion follows, and the libej rated oil is iorced up the tube until it soars ' in a fountain, 30ft or more in the air. Somet times the gas in' the tube takes fire from j contact with the descending squib. The ' shooter must then rush back and extinguish the flame by placing something over the opening. This is a moment of intense excitement and risk ; for unless he is very quick the descending squib will cause the , explosion before he can get away, and then | — the shooter goes up with the fountain of j oil and comes down in j>iecesr.