at seems entirely given over to machinery for the production
and storage of oil. On every hand are the tall, unsightly constructions
of timber that form the derricks, looking not unlike enormous spiders,
as they stand on the sides of the mountains or in the ravines, while the
network of iron pipes, through which the oil is forced by steam-pumps
from the wells to Jersey City, are fitting webs for such spiders.

Huge iron tanks, capable of holding from twenty to forty thousand
barrels of oil, dot the valley quite as thickly as do the blots of ink
on a school-boy's first composition, and form storage places for this
strange product of earth, when the supply is greater than the demand. It
is truly a singular scene, and he who visits this portion of the country
for the first time cannot rid himself of the impression that he has, by
some mysterious combination of circumstances, been transported to some
remote and unknown portion of the globe.

George, to whom this scene was perfectly familiar, did not seem inclined
to allow his friend to remain in silent wonder, for he persisted in
supplying him with a fund of dry detail, which effectually prevented any
indulgence of day-dreams.

Although Ralph would have preferred to gaze about him in silence,
George told him of the Pipe-Line Company, who owned the greater portion
of the huge iron receptacles for oil; who also owned the network of iron
pipes, through which they forced the oil to the market at a charge of
twenty-five cents per barrel.

He also told him that this company connected the main line of pipes with
each tank owned by the oil producers, supplying a small steam-pump at
each connection, and, at stated times, drew off from private tanks the
oil. He even went into the particulars of the work, explaining how each
man could tell exactly the number of barrels the company had taken from
his tank by measuring the depth of the oil before and after the
drawing-off process.

Then he described how these huge receptacles were frequently struck by
lightning, setting fire to the inflammable liquid, and causing
consternation everywhere in the valley; of the firing of solid shot into
the base of the tanks to make a perforation that would allow the oil to
run off, and of the loss of property and danger of life attending such
catastrophes.

So much of dry detail or interesting particulars of the oil business had
the young engineer to tell, that he had hardly finished when the horse