following the sinking of the initial well are a matter of history,
with which we have here nothing to do. It is sufficient to say that a
multitude of adventurers were drawn by the "oil-craze" into this late
wilderness, and the sinking of wells extended with unprecedented
rapidity over the region near Titusville and from there into more
distant fields.

By June 1, 1862, 495 wells had been put down near Titusville, and the
daily output of oil was nearly 6,000 barrels, selling at the wells
at from $4.00 to $6.00 per barrel. But the tapping of this vast
subterranean storehouse of oleaginous wealth continued, until the
estimated annual production was swelled from 82,000 barrels in 1859 to
24,385,966 barrels in 1883; in the latter year 2,949 wells were put
down, many of them, however, being simply dry holes.[1] The total output
of oil in the Pennsylvania regions, between 1859 and 1883, is estimated
at about 234,800,000 barrels--enough oil to fill a tank about 10,000
feet square, nearly two miles to a side, to a depth of over 131/2 feet.

[Footnote 1: The total number of wells in the Pennsylvania oil regions
cannot be given. In the years 1876-1884, inclusive, 28,619 wells were
sunk; this is an average of 3,179 per year. During the same period 2,507
dry holes were drilled at an average cost of $1,500 each.]

As long as oil could be sold at the wells at from $4.00 to $10.00
a barrel, the cost of transportation was an item hardly worthy of
consideration, and railroad companies multiplied and waged a bitter
war with each other in their scramble after the traffic. But as the
production increased with rapid strides, the market price of oil fell
with a corresponding rapidity, until the quotations for 1884 show
figures as low as 50 to 60 cents per barrel for the crude product at Oil