A GOOD TIME COMING FOR WHALES. | to four hundred feet, an iron pipe of five-inch

THE OIL FOUNTAINS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

To the Editors of the Evening Post :—

I HAVE recently been very much interested in a visit to Oil Creek, and believing that your readers would be edified with a brief account of the wonderful developments there to be witnessed, I have concluded to jot down a few of my observations :

bore being inserted in each and driven to the rock, usually some thirty-five or forty feet below the surface. A pump is inserted through this, opening with tubing sufficient to carry it to the proper oil opening, and by means of a flaxseed bag the waters from above the oil are shut off, and the oil thus prevented from rising outside the pump. The pump is then worked by a steam-engine, Titusville, Crawford County, Pennsyl- and discharges a mixture of oil and salt vania, is the emporium of the oil regions, water into a large vat standing near, where and from a quiet little farming community the oil immediately separating, runs off at has suddenly become a bustling, thriving an aperture in the top into a smaller vat, town, having within five or six months and the water is drawn off by a suitable doubled its buildings and trebled, if not opening in the side. From this second vat quadrupled, its population. A newspaper the oil is drawn immediately into barrels and has been successfully started; an oil refinery is ready for market. The expense of runis in full blast, and a steam cooperage is ning a pump is said to be not over six dolturning out iron-hooped barrels at the rate lars per day. Each barrel holds forty-two of some two hundred per day. A Boston gallons, and you can readily calculate what company has secured a site for a large hotel, profit there is in the business when the well which is very much needed, and will soon yields from twelve to seventy-five barrels be built, and a railroad is surveyed to Union per day. Such is the value of the oil, that Mills, some twenty-two miles distant, which from the commencement the demand has is to be immediately constructed. In fact, been in advance of the supply, and it is the crowd of spectators and of miners in sought with avidity by men ready to pay search of employment, as well as visitors cash at the wells for every gallon. There from curiosity, so throng the place as to are men there who have already made their make it more like a juvenile San Francisco fifteen or twenty thousand dollars in the last than the quiet place it was a few months five months from their single wells, and many since. landholders who have realized a like sum from their leases, which are daily becoming more numerous and prolific.

From the surface indications of oil which have long been known to exist in this region, it was inferred that fountains might be found underneath, and a Mr. Drake was the first man to conceive the plan of an artesian well in search of it. It was only last September that he commenced boring, and not before February or March were the results realized which wellnigh turned the heads of most of the inhabitants. He obtained a well which yielded, by pumping, some fifty barrels of oil per day, worth in the crude state thirty cents per gallon. Speculation at once commenced in lands. Some refused to sell at any price, while others received four or five times the amount that they valued their farms at a few weeks before, and these were resold again at large advances, or leased out in small parcels for a bonus in money and a large portion of the oil to be obtained. Other wells were immediately commenced, and have been starting with great rapidity ever since, until now it is estimated that at least two thousand are in progress, with flattering prospects, while some two hundred are either pumping or have found oil, and are awaiting the necessary pump and engine to work

them.

The wells are all after one model, the artesian, varying in depth from seventy-five

I visited the Crossby well, which at first yielded seventy-five barrels per day. Owing to the filling in of the shaft with sediment it was at that time yielding but twelve. Mr. Crossby was sinking another shaft near by, and as soon as it was ready he intended to shift his pump, and by rimming out the old well had no doubt of obtaining the former supply. We next visited the Barnsdale well, which also commenced pumping last March. This well had steadily yielded from the first some fifteen barrels per day, but had recently increased, and was now pumping eighteen. A few rods from this was the Williams well, which, at the time we were there, was the great and exciting topic of interest and conversation. The oil in this well came to the top with no admixture of water, and ran over. In order to save it a large plug was driven into the five-inch pipe, and a hole being bored through the centre of that, a three-cighth lead pipe was inserted, and being slightly curved, the oil was led directly into the bung of a barrel, and thus steadily day and night had it been running at the rate of twelve barrels per day for several days.

We were introduced to the owner, who

2d. As a solvent of gums, gutta percha, India rubber, etc., it is said to be preferable to any other article.

3d. In the manufacture of gas it is said to be cheaper and better than the best fish oil.

4th. It is now used to a certain extent for lubricating purposes, but experiments are in progress which justify the belief that it can be made one of the best lubricators in the world.

upon our coast. In fact, it possesses twentyfive per cent more illuminating power than the best coal oil, and from the fact that it does not chill in the cold is far superior to the best sperm oil. In fact, Messrs. Editors, coal oil no longer pays for making, and soon the poor whale will be followed only for his bones.

sat whittling upon a log near by. He was as happy as a young father with his first bairn. He had formerly been in the mercantile business in Warren, Pa., and having failed, had now gone in pursuit of oil, in hopes of retrieving his fortune. His first well in another locality was unsuccessful, and he abandoned it almost discouraged, and with scarcely a cent left. With the help of friends, however, he secured another site, and after patient drilling for a few weeks had met with what every one deemed great 5th. For export it is worth all it costs, success. He asked me if I was from New and is already extensively shipped to foreign York. I told him that I was. He then in-markets. Butquired if I knew various firms in New York. 6th. As an illuminating oil it excels every I told him that I did. "Well," said he, thing yet produced. It is already adopted "when you see them, tell them that Williams, to a great extent by the various railroad of Warren, is all right; that he has struck lines, and government has just closed a large oil,' and they will soon hear from him." I contract for it to supply the lighthouses congratulated him upon his success. "Well," he said, "he could call but one-sixth of it his own, having been obliged to pledge all the rest for means to carry it through." "But," said he "I shall take that arrangement up, and put in the drill again; I am not satisfied with that, and mean to have a thirty-barrel well yet." We laughed at his enthusiasm, and thought he had better let well enough alone. We left him, however; and, about two weeks later-as soon as he had replenished his pockets-as good as his word, he opened his pipe, put in the drill again, and, after drilling about two feet and a-half, opened a perfect river of oil, which was forced by the gas over the top of the tube at the rate of ten barrels per hour for about twenty hours, when the gas having blown off, the oil subsided and settled to a level within sight of the top of the tube. A pump has since been inserted, and the daily yield is now from seventy-five to one hundred barrels. Another well was opened last week within a few miles of this, with similar results, the oil discharging in such quantities for more than a day as to make it impossible to secure it, and it is supposed that not less than fifty barrels ran off into the creek and was lost. You will perceive by these facts that this is a growing affair, of which we have as yet but a faint conception; and it is safe to venture the assertion that no mining in the world pays better for the labor bestowed, or with greater certainty, than this rock oil. This region, too, is within twentyfour hours of the city, and offers an abundant opening for the poor laborer as well as for the man of means seeking an investment.

But what are the uses of this oil? We will name a few of them :

1st. In medicine it has long been used under the name of Seneca oil, and is a valuable liniment, possessing nearly all the virtues of arnica, etc.

Similar oil has been found in Canada, in Kentucky, in Ohio, and in Kansas, as well as in other countries of the globe, but this of Oil Creek is said to be equal, if not superior, to the best ever yet discovered, and it certainly is a source of wealth of which Pennsylvania may justly be proud.

There are many speculations as to the origin of this oil. Dr. Deck, of this city, has recently visited the region, and will no doubt soon enlighten the public as to his researches, but with no pretensions to scientific knowledge. I will give my guess, that, geologically speaking, this oil is all found below the bituminous coal beds, and I have little doubt but that it is the drainage from those beds. This is a crude theory, but, whether correct or not, it may provoke a better one from some scientific or practical geologist, and thus I shall gain a point, at least.

I should have stated in the proper place that this oil comes from the earth of a dirtybrown opaque color, and, on account of a large admixture of gas, readily takes fire. Several accidents have taken place in consequence of the use of lights about the wells and vats; barrels, oil and all have been clean burnt off in the conflagration. Upon refining it, however, it parts with all these offensive properties, losing from fifteen to twenty per cent, only in bulk, and yielding a fluid as pure and limpid as the best spring water, as free from explosive qualities as the best sperm oil, and worth seventy-five to eighty cents the gallon. So far nearly all the wells have been quietly monopolized by a large

and enterprising drug house in New York, and the business will soon be of such magnitude as to defy monopoly, and then there will be an abundance of light.

Yours,

W.

already commenced and with more or less signs of oil. Very few wells have been yet abandoned for want of encouragement, as the oil is found at depths varying from seventy-five to four hundred feet. The monster well above spoken of is but one hundred and Your communication the other day did twenty-four feet deep. So far the oil is said not give the latest and most astounding in- to net the producers twenty-four cents per formation from the oil regions of Pennsyl- gallon. But the same oil is intrinsically vania. The centre of the excitement is now worth fifty cents a gallon for refining, as it at a place called Tidioute, about seven miles readily brings seventy-five cents in the pure above the mouth of Oil Creek, on the Alle-state. The latest report from the Tidioute ghany. Boring for oil has been progressing well, August 21st, says it was still regularly there with little success for some months, discharging at the rate of thirty barrels per but about ten days ago a monster vein of hour. This well is certainly one of the wonpure oil was struck, which flows over the ders of the world. top of the five-inch pipe like a fountain, dis- The Rev. Howard Malcolm, D.D., late charging oil at the rate of a barrel per min-president of the university of Lewisburg, ute. It has been plugged up the same as Pa., and formerly a missionary to Burmah, was the Williams well at Tetorville, and a in a recent communication states that the half-inch pipe inserted through the plug, by Burmese Retrotician wells are about two which the oil is conducted to tanks near by, and a-half miles from the Irrawady, and holding fifteen barrels each, and it will fill about three hundred miles from its mouth. one of these every half-hour. The farmer There are four hundred of them in a space named Cobell, who owns about one hundred of twelve square miles. They are two and a and thirty acres of land where the discov-half feet in diameter and three hundred feet ery was made, can now take $200,000 for deep, and have been worked for ages, withhis farm, which six months ago he would have readily sold for $5,000. Already some seventy wells are in progress, and several others have found oil in moderate quantities. People are rushing into Tidioute, and the place is crowded already with many more than the dwellings can accommodate. Speculation is raging in lands, especially in the valleys of Pine and Oil Creeks and along the Alleghany, as well as in leases, and wells

out failing in any respect. Each well yields about four hundred pounds of oil per day, besides large quantities of water. The temperature of the oil, as received in the buckets, is ninety degrees. It has been shipped so largely to England as to treble the price of it within a few years.

With such encouragement, you may well predict a "good time coming for whales." Yours,

W.

THE ENVELOPE BUSINESS.-This has now become one of the most important branches of business, and a large capital is invested in it in various places. Envelopes were not introduced into Great Britain until the year 1839, and it was many years after that before they became generally used there. In this country it was not until the year 1845 that they were adopted, but in 1850 it is said 100 out of 112 letters were protected by an envelope, and since that time they have almost universally been employed. For some time envelopes were cut out and folded by hand, but the increasing demand soon led to the invention of machines for this purpose. In this country Mr. Gerald Sickles of New York was the first to perfect a machine, which answered a very good purpose for a while, but it is now superseded by others of a much better order, and

at the present time Messrs. Trumbull, Waters & Co., of this city, are supposed to own the patent of the best machine for the manufacture of envelopes which is used. It is the invention of Dr. R. L. Hawes, of this city, who is the originator of the envelope business here. The present firm of Trumbull, Waters & Co. have in use seventeen of these machines, the capacity of each being 10,000 per day. They employ steam power and produce about 60,000,000 envelopes annually, which are valued at $1 75 a thousand on an average, and which find a market in all parts of the country, they being sold to jobbers in every principal city of the Union. The largest shipment in any one lot was seven tons sent to one jobber to fill an order. They manufacture 250 varieties and sizes, and of all styles, and employ seventy-five persons in the business.- Worcester Times.

From The Saturday Review, 18 Aug.

GERMANY.

For the time, the princes of the confederation .seem to be cultivating the most harmonious relations. The king of Hanover, who lately allowed his minister to hold out a French alliance as a menace to Prussia, was frightened by the visit of Napoleon III. to Baden, and was won over by the loyal frankness with which the compliment was received and slighted. The grateful guests invited the prince regent to complete the union of Germany by the renewal of friendly relations with Austria, and the interview of Töplitz seems to have led to an understanding which, in connection with the English armaments, accounts for the pacific language which has recently been employed by France. No foreign power will ever venture an attack on united Germany; and it seems probable that, at the present moment, an invader would be met by the whole force of the confederation. The permanence of the concord among the governments must depend on the removal of the causes which have hitherto produced constant dissension. It is possible that the emperor of Austria may have promised substantial concessions to Prussia, in reference to the Hessian question, to the composition of the Diet, and to the command of the federal armies; but if no serious change has been effected, the existing friendship will be as liable to accidents as any ordinary alliance between foreign states. It will be no hardship for France to wait till the re-opening of some standing quarrel again leaves an opportunity for external intrigue.

THE German sticks seem to be tying themselves up into something like a faggot. Esop himself could not have pointed the moral of union and strength more forcibly than their industrious neighbor who came to Baden in search of stray bits of wood which he might break up to light his fire. The regent of Prussia is influenced in his German policy by scruples which seem excessive to some of the wisest of his countrymen. His anxious respect for the rights of the princely houses is scarcely reconcilable with the permanent interests of the nation. As long as six-and-thirty sovereigns divide the federal territory, it is scarcely possible that Germany can assume her true position as the greatest of continental powers. The imperfect military, organization of the league can only be corrected by placing all the northern and western contingents under the absolute control of Prussia; and the scandals which have occurred in Electoral Hesse prove that the authorized intervention of the same power is necessary to correct the abuses of civil administration. The prince of Prussia, or his successors, must hereafter overrule the misdirected delicacy which declines a patriotic duty because it seems to tend to personal aggrandizement; but nevertheless, the refusal to disturb German arrangements, on the invitation of France, was at the same time prudent and dignified. The impudent pretext which was put forward to justify the seizure of Savoy furnished a One statement, which is probably true, sufficient illustration of the overtures which augurs well for the genuineness of the recent were addressed to the supposed cupidity of approximation between the governments. Prussia. The pamphleteers of Paris showed, Austria is said to have acquiesced in the with imprudent logic, that the mediatization wise refusal of Prussia to guarantee the of Hanover and of Brunswick would furnish Venetian territory unless the expected Italian as legitimate a ground of compensation to attack is supported by France. Last year's France as the recent aggrandizement of experience has perhaps convinced the statesPiedmont; but the representative of Ger- men of Germany that there is no chance of many, even if he thought it desirable to re- aid from England in any war which may be form the ancient tenure, was not disposed to directed against the independence of Italy. pay a fine for enfranchisement to the lord of The reported intention of Austria to act the adjacent manor. There is reason to be- against Garibaldi in Naples is menacing to lieve that, if the concurrence of England the peace of the world, as it would furnish could have been obtained, Prussia would not an excuse for the interference of France, and have been indisposed to resist by force the at the same time ensure the neutrality of lawless and menacing annexation of Savoy England. If the contingency should unhapand Nice. The immediate object of secur- pily arise, Prussia would probably attempt ing the Rhenish Provinces from invasion to confine the theatre of war within the has, for the present, been secured at a cheaper cost, but one of the alternatives which are held out by France still presses upon Germany. Internal division, occasionally moderated by common fears, is better than actual dismemberment; but any serious attempt to create a sounder organization would probably be met by a revival of French pretension.

limits of Italy. If France took the initiative against Austria, even on the Venetian frontier, the whole of the German Confederation would at once enter into the struggle; but, in a single-handed war between Austria and Italy, it would be unnecessary, imprudent, and unjust for Prussia to interfere. Venetia is, unfortunately, a constant source of danger to Europe, as it involves a stand

ing antagonism between national feeling and legal right. It is impossible to blame the government of Vienna for clinging to a possession which is constantly menaced as it has been obstinately defended; yet it is certain that if Italy were abandoned, and Hungary effectually conciliated, Austria would become invulnerable.

growing divergence of internal policy. The evils of duality will be reduced to the lowest point if Austria begins to take the people into account, at the same time that the loyalty of the prince regent disarms the jealousy of the minor courts. By an understanding between the two leading powers, the grand dukes and the secondary kings might be forced or encouraged to adopt Prussian maxims of administration at home, and to acquiesce as obedient viceroys in the decision of their superiors on questions of peace and war. If the great central nation were once permanently united, French pamphleteers might finally desist from publishing new versions

From The Saturday Review, 18 Aug.
THE CHINESE WAR.

A growing confidence is felt in the new council of the empire. The special reforms which it will probably originate will be less significant and valuable than its own existence and the publicity of its discussions. All constitutional experience and much sound reason may be alleged in favor of elected assemblies, but it is more important that of the future map of Europe. councils should assemble than that they should represent bodies of electors. Independence of opinion and freedom of debate, wherever they are found, correct the distinc- WARS have often been compared to lawtive faults of an absolute monarchy; and, suits, and the analogy has never been closer notwithstanding its imperfect organization than in the case of the present dispute with and the indefinite nature of its functions, China. A numerous section of the communthe council of the empire has already given ity will recognize but too familiarly the proc-. a new character to the domestic policy of ess of quarrelling without anger, of pursuAustria. The Emperor Francis Joseph, ing claims which it is not desired to enforce, though he has never yet displayed either in- of finding that every step in litigation rentelligence or generosity, may perhaps have ders it more difficult to abandon the suit, been taught by adversity to emancipate him- and, above all, of accumulating costs which self from the degrading influences of female bear a constantly increasing proportion to narrowness and bigotry. He has submitted the value of the subject matter. In many to hear some salutary truths from a portion instances, there is not even the miserable of his nobility, and he may have begun to satisfaction of throwing the blame on the suspect that his vast dominions by no means attorney, for it seems as if every stage in exist for the sake of himself, his courtiers, the proceedings had been justified by pruand his priests. The relation of internal dence or necessity. The perplexed client contentment to foreign policy must have can only attribute his troubles to an overbeen impressed even on the dullest under- ruling destiny, or, in other words, to the imstanding by the compulsory peace of Villa- perfection of human foresight, and to the franca. Even after the disasters of Ma- mutual inability of different persons to ungenta and Solferino, the Austrian army in derstand one another's motives and intenthe Quadrilateral outnumbered the exhausted tions. When nation deals with nation, the enemy on the outside of the fortresses. The difficulty is enormously increased, and it opportunity of a signal vengeance on the reaches its highest development in the relatriumphant invader was unavoidably thrown tions between European nations and China. away, because the continuance of the war With barbarians, as with dogs and horses, for another month would have given time it is possible to establish an intelligible mefor an insurrection in Hungary. The coun- dium of communication, either by elaborate cil of the empire may possibly conciliate the fairness and benevolence, or by the more different provinces by restoring their local usual method of superior force. The peculrights, while the comparatively liberal policy iar civilization of China renders it necessary which it will recommend in Germany may to adopt some formal or legal rules of interperhaps lay a solid foundation for harmony course, and yet it is impossible to apply even with Prussia. Up to the present time, the the lax international morality which has bewhole influence of Austria has been directed come traditionally established in Christento the support of the petty princes, whose dom. The Chinese authorities never fail to subserviency was in turn secured by the un- encroach on weakness, and they often pass popularity of their own administration. The great body of the nation, especially in the northern states, necessarily looked for a counterpoise in Prussia, so that the natural rivalry of the two great monarchies was sustained and embittered by a permanent and

over without resentment the hostile acts of foreigners; but it is unsafe to calculate either on their presumption or on their endurance. The government of Pekin neither blusters nor truckles according to any simple formula, and accordingly it becomes necessary to pre