All this is very unpleasant for New Bedford; but are we to have
no more oil? Is nature failing? Will the time come when people must
sit in darkness?

A few months ago a man in Pennsylvania took it into his head to
probe the ground for the source of a certain oil that made its
appearance upon the surface. Down, down into the bowels of the
earth he thrust his steam-driven harpoon, until he touched the
living fountain of oil, which, gushing up, half drowned him. Now,
all the region round about him swarms with industry. Thousands of
men are hurrying to and fro; the puff of the engine is heard
everywhere; tens of thousands of barrels of oil are rolled out and
turned into the channels of commerce; eager-eyed speculators
throng all the converging avenues of travel, and a waiting world
of consumers take the oil as fast as it is produced. Men in
Virginia, New York, and Ohio are awaking to the consciousness
that, while they have been paying for oil from the far Pacific,
they have been living within three hundred feet of deposits
greater than all the cargoes that ever floated in New Bedford
harbor. For hundreds, and, probably, for thousands of years, men
have walked over these deposits with no suspicion of their
existence. Geologists have looked wise, as is their habit, but
have given no hint of them.

The simple truth appears to be that when, in the history of the
world, it became necessary for these firmly-fastened store-houses
of oil to be uncovered, they were uncovered. Nature had held them
for untold thousands of years for just this emergency. When the
whales ceased spouting, the earth took up the business; and "here
she blows" and "there she blows" are heard in Tideoute and