he finds the plain at the left rising sharply into a bluff.

It is in these flats that the oil is found; and each of them is thickly studded with derricks and engine-buildings, each representing a distinct well, with a name of its own,—as the Hyena, the Little Giant, the Phoenix, the Sca'at Cat, the Little Mac, the Wild Rabbit, the Grant, Burnside, and Sheridan, with several hundred more. The flats themselves are generally known as Farms, with the names of the original proprietors still prefixed,—as the Widow McClintock Farm, Story Farm, Tarr Farm, and the rest.

Few of these god-parents of the soil are at present to be found upon it: many of them in the beginning of the oil speculation having sold out at moderate prices to shrewd adventurers, who made themselves rich men before the dispossessed Rip Van Winkles awoke to a consciousness of what was going on about them. Some, more fortunate or more far-sighted, still hold possession of the land, but enjoy their enormous incomes in the cities and places of fashionable resort, where their manners and habits introduce a refreshing element of novelty.

Few proprietors can be persuaded to sell the golden goose outright; and the most usual course is for the individual or company intending to sink a well to buy what is called a working interest in the soil, the owner retaining a land interest or royalty, through which he claims half the proceeds of the well, while the lessee may, after months of expense and labor, abandon the enterprise with only his labor for his pains. These failures are also a great source of annoyance to the proprietors: for many of these abandoned wells require only capital to render them available; but the finances of the first speculator being exhausted, no new one will risk his money in them, while the old lease would interfere with his right to the proceeds.

Even the land for building purposes is only leased, with the proviso that the tenant must move, not only himself, but his house, whenever the landlord sees fit to explore his cellar or flower-garden for oil.

A land interest obtained, the precise spot for breaking ground is selected somewhat by experience, but more by chance,—all "oil territory" being expected to yield oil, if properly sought. An engine-house and derrick are next put up, the latter of timber in the modern wells, but in the older ones simply of slender saplings, sometimes still rooted in the earth. A steam-engine is next set up, and the boring commences.

By means of a spile-driver, an iron pipe, sharp at the lower edge and about six inches in diameter, is driven down until it rests upon the solid rock, usually at a depth of about fifty feet. The earth is then removed from the inside of this pipe by means of a sand-pump, and the "tools" attached to a cable are placed within it.

These tools, consisting of a centre-bit and a rammer, are each thirty or thirty-five feet in length, and weigh about eight hundred pounds. At short intervals these are replaced by the sand-pump, which removes the drillings.

The first three strata of rock are usually slate, sandstone, and soapstone. Beneath these, at a depth of two hundred feet, lies the second sandstone, and from this all the first yield of oil was taken; but, though good in quality, this supply was speedily exhausted, and the modern wells are carried directly through this second sandstone, through the slate and soapstone beneath, to the third sandstone, in whose crevices lies the largest yield yet discovered. The proprietors of old wells are now reaming them out and sinking their shafts to the required depth, which is about four hundred and fifty feet.

The oil announces itself in various ways: sometimes by the escape of gas; sometimes by the appearance of oil upon the cable attached to the tools; sometimes by the dropping of the tools, showing that a crevice has been reached; and in occasional happy instances by a rush of oil spouting to the top of the derrick, and tossing out the heavy tools like feathers.

Such a well as this, known as a flowing well, is the best "find" possible, as the fortunate borer has nothing more to do than to put down a tubing of cast-iron artesian pipe, lead the oil from its mouth into a tank, and then, sitting under his own vine and fig-tree, leave his fortune to accumulate by daily additions of thousands of dollars. A flowing well, struck while Miselle was upon the Creek, yielded fifteen hundred barrels per day, the oil selling at the well for ten dollars and a half the barrel.

But should the oil decline to flow, or, having flowed, cease to do so, a force-pump is introduced, and, driven by the same engine that bored the well, brings up the oil at a rate varying from three to three hundred barrels per day. The Phillips Well, on Tarr Farm, originally a flowing well, producing two thousand barrels per day, now pumps about three hundred and thirty, and is considered a first-class well.

Before reaching oil, the borer not unfrequently comes upon veins of water, either salt or fresh; and this water is excluded from the shaft by a leathern case applied about the pipe and filled with flax-seed. The seed, swollen by the moisture, completely fills the space remaining between the tube and the walls of the shaft, so that no water reaches the oil. But whenever the tubing with its seed-bags is withdrawn, the water rushing down "drowns" not only its own well, but all such as have subterraneous communication with it. In this manner one of the most important wells upon the Creek avenged itself some time ago upon a too successful rival by drawing its tubing and letting down the water upon both wells. The rival retaliated by drawing its own tubing, with a like result, and the proprietors of each lost months of time and hundreds of thousands of dollars before the quarrel could be adjusted.

From the mouth of the shaft, elevated some fifteen feet above the surface of the ground, the oil either flows or is pumped into an immense vat or tank, and from this is led to another and another, until a large well will have a series of tanks connected like the joints of a rattlesnake's tail. Into the last one is put a faucet, and the oil drawn into barrels is either carried to the local refinery, or in its crude condition is boated to the railway, or to Oil City, and thence down the Alleghany.

One of the principal perils attending oil-seeking is that of fire. Petroleum, in its crude state, is so highly impregnated with gas and with naphtha, or benzine as to be very inflammable,—a fact proved, indeed, many years ago, when, as history informs us,

unconsciously turning his back upon a fortune such as probably had never entered the worthy knight's imagination.

The petroleum once ignited, it is very hard to extinguish the flames; and Mr. Williams told of being one of a company of men who labored twenty-four hours in vain to subdue a burning well. They tried water, which only aggravated the trouble; they tried covering the well with earth, but the gas permeated the whole mass and blazed up more defiantly than ever; they covered the mound of earth with a carpet, (paid for at the value of cloth of gold,) and the carpet with wet sand, but a bad smell of burned wool was the only result. Finally, some incipient Bonaparte hit upon the expedient of dividing the Allies, who together defied mankind, and, bringing a huge oil-tank, inverted it over the sand, the carpet, the earth, and the well, by this time one blazing mass. Fire thus cut off from Air succumbed, and the battle was over.

"There was no one hurt that time," pursued Friend Williams, in a tone of airy reminiscence; "but mostly at our fires there'll be two or three people burned up, and more women than men, I've noticed. Either