e 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 But whenever the tubing with its seed-bags is withdrawn, the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,

"General Clarke kindled the vapor,
Stayed about an hour, and left it a-burning,"

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 ea