were it not for the light of inspiration on the sacred page, down to the
present time, petroleum has occupied a place in the arrangements of man,
either as an article of utility or luxury. It has been one of God's
great gifts to his creatures, designed for their happiness, but kept
treasured up in His secret laboratory, and developed only in accordance
with their necessities. And now, in our own days, and in these ends of
the earth, the great Treasure House has been unlocked, the seal broken,
and the supply furnished most bountifully.

The oil region of Western Pennsylvania is the portion of oil-producing
territory that now occupies the largest share of attention. It is
confined principally to the valley of Oil Creek, a tributary of the
Alleghany River, which it enters at a point about sixty miles south from
Lake Erie. It is true that oil wells are successfully worked on the
banks of the Alleghany for some distance above and below the mouth of
Oil Creek: still the county of Venango has monopolized almost the whole
number of oil-producing wells in this region.

There are some strange facts, that point to a history all unwritten save
in some few brief sentences in pits and excavations, of oil operations
along the Oil Valley. These detached fragments, like the remains of the
Sibylline Oracles, but cause us to regret more earnestly the loss of the
volumes which contained the whole. A grand and wonderful history has
been that of this American continent, but it has never been graven in
the archives of time. The actors in its bygone scenes have passed away
in their shadowy grandeur, leaving but dim footprints here and there to
tell us they have been, and cause us to wonder at the mystery which
veils their record, and to muse upon the evanescent glory of man's
earthly destiny.