"Struck Oil."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5283, 14 June 1895, Page 3

" Struck Oil."

! It has not yet been " straek ** in the proper sense at Taranaki, bat it ha» long been known that the country atonnd New Plymouth shows copious indicatione of being charged with mineral oil. In 1888. Mr H. A. Gordon, inspecting Engineer to the Mininir De*

payment, reported to the Government on the subject of these oil-fields as follows :— "I found small quantities of petroleum, with numerous jeta of carburetted hydrogen ga«, bubbling up here and there along the ocean beach on the north side of the breakwater o! New Plymouth for a distance of three hundred yarda. TheSo can only be Been at low water, as the foreshore is covered with a thick deposit of iron sand. Wh»»<>. fk. -i,

la clear of thia sand, traces of oil can be eeen on lifting the boulders, and also in sinking down in the soft volcanic deposit, the ground to some extent ia saturated with it." Mr Gordon added s "In travelling inland I found that Beveral people had sunk wells, but afterwarda ailed them up, as the water had a, strong *****

of keroaene. Mr Kyngdon, a settler in ! the locality of Omata, stated that he! Bank a well some 60 feet deep, and the water found at the bottom could not be used for domestic purposes, and he therefore rilled it up again." Mr Gordon's conclusion was :— • •If this information can be relied on, it goes to show that petroleum exists over a large area, and that it is only a question of boring the requisite depth to get at the source." During the yeara that have elapsed since then, there hare been fitful efforts to develop these oil deposits, but' hitherto 5 no flowing well has been tapped, and we very much doubt whether the excitement that now prevails in Taranaki on the subject is at all juetißed by the facts. The recent remarkable advance in the price of kerosene appears to have resulted from a comparative failure of the oil wells of the United Stateß. The stocks of the Standard Oil Trust were recently exhausted, and there was immediately a rise in price and a great impetus given to prospecting for oil. In the Pennsylvania, Ohio and other oil-, fields 2000 new pipe wells have been sunk, while dynamite has been exploded in the old wells with a view to increasing the flow. Prospectors are hurrying all over the country trying to buy farms or lease wells, and there is very active speculation. Leading Pittsburg dealers say that the daily output baa been about:2o,ooo barrels short of the demand, and all the stocks are Running low. In these circumstances it- is possible that capital will be available

for the devolopment of . the Taranaki oilfields. It is a curious fact, v as pointed out by Mr Charles Marvin, in "Our Unappreciated Petroleum Empire," that the etoreß of oil in British terri- J tory have not yet been worked, though the output from the United States alone ib computed to have reached a value of .£200,000,000 in the thirty years from 1859 to 1889. Mr Marvin eaye that "several times this value of petroleum lies latent and untouched in the bowels of the British Empire. If the United States can bb&at of Pennsylvania and Bussia of Baku, we pan point to a potential Pennsylvania in Weatern Canada, a Baku in Burmah, iand| an oil-fed Middleaborough in New Zealand. If in a few short years, Buesia has been able to Btrike in with her oil and divide in twain the monopoly of petroleum hitherto enjoyed by the States, ia there any reason why England with her vast capital and immense oil deposits, should not be able to imitate the slow-paced Muscovite, and Becure a third Bhare of the petroleum trade of the world?" Mr Gordon and Mr Marvin both agree that the Tiranaki petroleum springs, if proved, £oul4 be worked most profitably on of their proximity to the port, whereas the oil of Pennsylvania has to be piped three hundred or four hundred miles to export refineries on the coast, and that from; Baku ia conveyed by railway five hundred and sixty miles to Batoum. If not iqhite justifiable, the; exciter menfc in Taranaki over the oil Bprings ia quite explicable. Wealth "beyond the dreams of avarice" has been accumulated by those who "struck oil" in America. Mr John D. Bockefeller, the head of the Standard Oil Trust, is said to be worth about £50,000,000. In the United States the "oil fever" is as well-known a

disease as the « gold fever" used to be here. The advantages of oil as a wealth-producer were dwelt upon by Mr Gilead P. Beck in Walter Besant's novel, "The Golden Butterfly," in this way :—" There is the disadvantage about gold and diamonds that you have to dig for them, and to dig darned hard, and to dig yourself mostly. Americans do not love digging. Like the young gentleman in the parable—they cannot dig and to beg they are ashamed. It is the only occupation they are | ashamed of. Then there's iron, and I there's coals, but you've got to dig Cor them. Lord! Lord! this great airth holds a hundred things covered up for them who knows where to look, and do not mind digging. But, gentlemen, the greatest gift the airth has bestowed she gave tome — abundant, spontaneous, etarnal and free— and that is He! He! Gold you have to dig for, to pick, to wash. Gold means rheumatism and a bent back. He flows, and you become suddenly rich. You make all the loafers around fill youx pails for yon, and your bankers tell you how many millions of dollars you are worth." We fervently hope that the oil wells of Taranaki may prove rich and permanent;, but it is well to remember that permanence can only be comparative. There was one oil " boom " in the Unitad States, which in a few montbß led to the growth of a city of twenty thousand people ; but in lesß than two years the wells, which alone gave it life, showed signs of exhaustion, and fire and flood completed the work of; destruction, until to-day the site has reverted into a farm, with barely a human habitation to commemorate the city of oil. Consideration of such facts as these may chasten the rapture of our Taranaki friends, and may also— though of this we are doubtful— cause investors to be chary of how they sink money in oil speculation.