Scientific American Supplement, No. 520, December 19, 1885 | Page 9

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 than ourselves had sufficient faith in the
continuity of the gas supply to offer to furnish us with gas for a sum per
year equal to that hitherto annually paid for coal until the amount

expended by them on piping had been repaid, and afterward at half that
sum. It took us about eighteen months to recoup the gas company, and
we are now working under the permanent arrangement of one-half the
previous cost of fuel on cars at work. Since our success in the use of
this new natural fuel at the rail mills, parties still bolder have invested
in lines of piping to the city of Pittsburg, fifteen to eighteen miles from
the wells. The territory underlain with this natural gas has not yet been
clearly defined. At the principal field, that of Murraysville (from which
most of the gas is obtained to-day), I found, upon my visit to that
interesting region last autumn, that nine wells had been sunk, and were
yielding gas in large quantities. One of these was estimated as yielding
30,000,000 cubic feet in 24 hours. This district lies to the northeast of
Pittsburg, running southward from it toward the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Gas has been found upon a belt averaging about half a mile in width for
a distance of between four and five miles. Beyond that again we reach a
point where salt water flows into the wells and drowns the gas. Several
wells have been bored upon this belt near the Pennsylvania Railroad,
and have been found useless from this cause. Geologists tell us that in
this region a depression of 600 feet occurs in the strata, but how far the
fault extends has not yet been ascertained. Wells will no doubt soon be
sunk southward of the Pennsylvania Railroad upon this half-mile belt.
Swinging round toward the southwest, and about twenty miles from the
city, we reach the gas fields of Washington county. The wells so far
struck do not appear to be as strong as those of the Murraysville district,
but it is possible that wells equally productive may be found there
hereafter. There are now four wells yielding gas in the district, and
others are being drilled. Passing still further to the west, we reach
another gas territory, from which manufacturing works in Beaver Falls
and Rochester, some twenty-eight miles west of Pittsburg, receive their
supply. Proceeding with the circle we are drawing in imagination
around Pittsburg, we pass from the west to the southwest without
finding gas in any considerable quantity, until we reach the Butler gas
field, equidistant from Pittsburg on the northwest, with Washington
county wells on the southwest. Proceeding now from the Butler field to
the Allegheny River, we reach the Tarentum district, still about twenty
miles from Pittsburg, which is supplying a considerable portion of the
gas used. Drawing thus a circle around Pittsburg, with a radius of

fifteen to twenty miles, we find four distinct gas-producing districts. In
the city of Pittsburg itself several wells have been bored; but the fault
before mentioned seems to extend toward the center of the circle, as
salt water has rushed in and rendered these wells wholly unproductive,
though gas was found in all of them.
I spent a few days very pleasantly last autumn driving