A Practical Treatise on Petroleum: Comprising Its Origin, Geology, Geographical Distribution, History, Chemistry, Mining, Technology, Uses and Transportation. Together with a Description of Gas Wells, the Application of Gas as Fuel, Etc

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Page 387 - It has been said that he who makes two blades of grass grow where only one grew before is a benefactor to his species.
Page 102 - Some idea of the mass of matter thrown up from the well could be formed by a glance at the damage done on the south side in twenty-four hours — a vast shoal of sand having been formed which had buried to the roof some magazines and shops, and had blocked to the height of six or seven feet all the neighboring derricks within a distance of 50 yards.
Page iii - CREW. — A Practical Treatise on Petroleum : Comprising its Origin, Geology, Geographical Distribution, History, Chemistry, Mining, Technology, Uses and Transportation. Together with a Description of Gas Wells, the Application of Gas as Fuel, etc. By BENJAMIN J. CREW. With an Appendix on the Product and Exhaustion of the Oil Regions, and the Geology of Natural Gas in Pennsylvania and New York. By CHARLES A. ASHBURNER, MS.
Page 87 - Georgiania there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch that a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is also used to anoint camels that have the mange.
Page 461 - The general conditions upon which the occurrence of natural gas seems to depend, from a consideration of the facts at present at our command, are: (a) the porosity and homogeneousness of the sandstone which serves as a reservoir to hold the gas ; (b) the extent to which the strata above or below the gas-sand are cracked ; (c) the dip of the gas-sand and the position of the anticlines and synclines...
Page 101 - ... with a roar in its upward course, and which served in a measure to check its velocity. The derrick itself was 70 feet high, and the oil and the sand, after bursting through the roof and sides, flowed fully three times higher, forming a greyish-black fountain, the column clearly defined on the southern side, but merging into a cloud of spray thirty yards broad on the other.
Page 101 - IN America there are over 25,000 drilled petroleum wells. Baku possesses 400. But a single one of those 400 wells has thrown up as much oil in a day as nearly the whole of the 25,000 in America put together. This is very wonderful, but a more striking fact is, that the copiousness of the well should have ruined its owners, and broken the heart of the engineer who bored it, after having yielded enough oil in four months to have realised in America at least one million sterling.
Page 129 - They collect the petroleum by skimming it, like cream from a milk-pan. For this purpose they use a broad flat board, made thin at one edge like a knife ; it is moved flat upon, and just under the surface of, the water, and is soon covered by a thin coating of the petroleum, which is so thick and adhesive that it does not fall off, but is removed by scraping the instrument on the lip of a cup.
Page 101 - ... a greyish-black fountain, the column clearly defined on the southern side, but merging into a cloud of spray thirty yards broad on the other. A strong southerly wind enabled us to approach within a few yards of the crater on the former side, and to look down into the sandy basin formed round about the bottom of the derrick, where the oil was bubbling and seething round the stalk of the oil-shoot like a geyser.
Page 128 - Its geological character is the same with that which is known to prevail in this western region; a silicious sandstone, with shale, and in some places limestone is the immediate basis of the country. The sandstone and shale (the limestone I did not see) lie in nearly horizontal strata. The sandstone is usually of a light gray color, and both it and the shale abound with entrocites, encrinites, corallines, terebratula, and other religuae, characteristic of the secondary transition formation.

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