come to supplant. It is now many years since the pumping engines at oil
wells were first run by gas, obtained in small quantities from many of
the holes which failed to yield oil. In several cases immense gas wells
were found near the oil district; but some years elapsed before there
occurred to any one the idea of piping it to the nearest manufacturing
establishments, which were those about Pittsburg. Several years ago the
product of several gas wells in the Butler region was piped to two mills
at Sharpsburg, five miles from the city of Pittsburg, and there used as
fuel, but not with such triumphant success as to attract much attention
to the experiment. Failures of supply, faults in the tubing, and
imperfect appliances for use at the mills combined to make the new fuel
troublesome. Seven years ago a company drilled for oil at Murraysville,
about eighteen miles from Pittsburg. A depth of 1,320 feet had been
reached when the drills were thrown high in the air, and the derrick
broken to pieces and scattered around by a tremendous explosion of gas.
The roar of escaping gas was heard in Munroville, five miles distant.
After four pipes, each two inches in diameter, had been laid from the
mouth of the well and the flow directed through them, the gas was
ignited, and the whole district for miles round was lighted up. This
valuable fuel, although within nine miles of our steel-rail mills at
Pittsburg, was permitted to waste for five years. It may well be asked
why we did not at once secure the property and utilize this fuel; but the
business of conducting it to the mills and there using it was not well
understood until recently. Besides this, the cost of a line was then more
than double what it is now; we then estimated that £140,000 would be
required to introduce the new fuel. The cost to-day does not exceed
£1,500 per mile. As our coal was not costing us more than 3s. per ton of
finished rails, the inducement was not in our opinion great enough to
justify the expenditure of so much capital and taking the risk of failure
of the supply. Two years ago men who had more knowledge of the oil-wells