Delaware State Journal And Statesman

HOW AN OIL WELL IS BORED.

A correspondent of the Boston Traveller, writing from the oil regions of Pennsylvania, gives the following description of the manner in which oil is found: "In selecting a spot for a well, the artesian driller raises a derrick about 110 feet in height, bringing up a steam engine of about six horse power, and then after driving down an iron pipe six inches in diameter through the earth and gravel some fifty feet or so, to the first strata of rock, introduces a drill, of about two and a half inches in diameter, attached to a temper screw, and thence to a 'working beam' and engine with which he bores now at the rate of eight or ten feet per day into the solid slate and soapstone, say one hundred feet; he then comes to the first strata of sandstone, which may be ten or twelve feet in thickness; and boring through this comes again to a slate and soapstone of a bluish cast, and working on, say for twenty feet or so, he reaches the second strata of sandstone, out of which there comes rushing up, when the right vein is struck, inflammable gas, salt water and petroleum. The bore of the well is enlarged by a rimmer. and then an iron tube, in sections of about fourteen feet and closely screwed together, is inserted in two sections and run down to the veins of oil; a flax-seed bag, which expands when wet, is fixed between the tubing and the walls of the well, in order to prevent the surface water from descending; a 'plunger' or valved piston is introduced into the tube, and the sucking rod being attached to the 'working-beam,' the conduit pipes and tank which may hold sixty barrels, being in readiness, the engine moves and the precious treasure gushes forth. This is what is called pumping a well. In the 'flowing wells,' that is, such as send the oil out spontaneously, the drill must go down into the third strata of sand. stone, but this in some instances is very deep. In a well on Watson's Flat the drill has reached the depth of three hundred feet, and yet the third bed of sand. stone is not reached."