een pumped at the well. After this, perhaps, may be
seen a rude nondescript, that surely was never dreamed of outside the
oil region. It consists of a series of rough ladders, constructed of
tall saplings. Between each pair of rounds in these ladders is placed a
barrel of oil, floating in the water, but kept in position by its
hamper. A number of these ladders are lashed together, until the float
contains two or three hundred barrels of oil.

The bulks spoken of are about sixteen feet square and two or three feet
in depth, divided internally into bulk-heads of perhaps four feet
square, to prevent any undue agitation of the oil by the motion of the
boat, and are sometimes decked over. These unpromising boats, as well as
the ladder floats, are, during favorable weather, often run to Pittsburg
with entire safety. Steamboats, however, run up to the mouth of Oil
Creek during the time of high water, and afford the safest and most
expeditious means of transportation.

As to the abundance of the supply in this region, there can be but
little doubt. Wells seem at times to become exhausted, but it is from
local causes. At times a cavity may be tapped that has been supplied
from a very small avenue, and may be readily exhausted, but exhausted
only to be refilled again. The fact that wells do not interfere with
each other, even when but fifty feet apart, is evidence that the supply
is not confined to a limited stratum, but is drawn from the great deeps
beneath. The existence of the ancient oil pits, before alluded to,
assures us that the supply has been continued for centuries; and
observation confirms this, as we have noticed the hitherto unused
treasure bubbling up silently through the crevices in the rocks and
gradually evaporating amid the sands, or arising in the beds of the
streams and floating down upon their surface. The history of the
petroleum trade in other lands encourages us as to the abundance of the
supply in our own. In the northern part of Italy, petroleum has been
collected for more than two hundred years, without any intimation that
the supply is being exhausted. In Burmah a supply has been drawn from
the earth for an unknown period, and so far are these wells from
exhaustion that they yield at the present time over twenty-five millions
of gallons per annum. We may well suppose, then, that the treasure
brought to light in such abundance in our day will not be readily
exhausted--that as the coals are found in ill