The Evening Telegraph

THE OIL REGIONS.
The Biggest Find Yet—A Four Hundred
Barrel Well Struck.

The Titusville Courier of Monday says:—A
new flowing well on the Angell Prentice tract
at Foster was struck on Saturday morning.
When the drill had pierced the third sand to a
depth of three feet an immense reservoir of oil
and gas was opened, which instantly stopped
operations and forced a stream of oil up through
the well and far above the derrick. The volume
of gas was immense, and that spreading in every
direction was at once ignited by the fire in the
boiler, and the workmen barely escaped with
their lives from the explosion and conflagration
that ensued.

Everything about the well was of course consumed, but fortunately no person was injured.
Efforts were at once begun to extinguish the
flames, and in this the men were twice successful, but the heated casing in each case rekindled
the fire at the next flow. The discharge of oil.
in a stream the full size of the casing, occurred
at intervals of about ten minutes, so that no
time elapsed in which to cool the casing, and it
was feared that the only way would be to fill the
well with water. This well is known as number
eleven, and is the sixteenth that has been
drilled on the property, fifteen of which have
been good paying wells. The amount of oil
lost by the fire is of course not known, but the
well bids fair to be one of the best now in operation.

The same paper of yesterday says:—The well
which was on fire on Saturday is probably the
biggest one we have recorded for a long time.
The fire was finally extinguished Saturday
afternoon, and the well has since flowed a large
amount of oil; at least four hundred barrels a
day, probably much more.