All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

288 All About Inventions health and sheer want for the bare necessaries of life, while he died in obscurity and almost forgotten. Upon achieving the obj ect which he set out to do he appears to have abandoned all further interest in oil. The quest seems to have appealed to him because it had evidently been set down as impossible. Certain it is that wealth held out no attractions for him. His well continued to yield its 35 gallons an hour for a year, and then flickered out. The days of ’59 in Pennsylvania, following Drake’s discovery, compared with those of ’49 which attended the revelation of gold in California. The energetic seekers for oil, rationally supposing that if oil existed along Oil Creek if would be found in other parts of the State, pushed farther afield. Sanguine expecta- tions were fulfilled. Oil-wells came into productivity over a wide area. Drake’s yield of 35 gallons per hour was considered to be bounteous, but it was com- pletely eclipsed by the strikes which were made shortly afterwards. In fact, so much oil was obtained that the seekers did not know what to do with it. Petroleum threatened to overwhelm and flood the country-side. The railways, river-boats, and wagons were pressed into service to carry it from point to point for subsequent treatment. Ponds were dug to receive it, and enormous tanks, first wrought of wood, and resembling huge vats or tuns, were hurriedly con- structed to hold the precious liquid mineral. Subse- quently iron and steel superseded wood for the fabrica- tion of the tanks. But the transportation of the crude oil to the refineries offered the most perplexing pro- blem. Even when every available facility had been pressed into service, supply fell short of demand.