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The Age of Oil 293 board of Peru is also dotted freely with the familiar derrick, and oil-winning is actively and profitably prosecuted. Off the Californian seashore the oil beds stretch a considerable distance under the sea. Long narrow piers have been run out, and pipes have been driven through the water to the oil-yielding soil underlying the sea-bed, the nests of towers rising from the water-level presenting a strange spectacle. But as the exploitation of the dormant oil re- sources of the earth proceeded apace it was discovered that a plentiful yield is far from being a blessing. As a matter of fact, a prodigious gusher is a curse and a source of constant anxiety until the flow has been brought under control. The greatest enemy of the oil-field is fire, and unfortunately, owing to the hap- hazard methods and frantic endeavours of the oil- seekers to get rich quickly, precautions are often ignored. The oil, blowing freely hither and thither at the will of the wind, drenches everything. The wooden build- ings become saturated with the inflammable liquid, and even the soil itself for miles around becomes con- verted into a petroleum semi-quagmire. Under such conditions a flash of lightning, a match carelessly thrown down, a lighted cigarette, or even a spark from the drilling machinery is liable to precipitate a holocaust. The majority of the biggest oil-fields of the world have experienced the full ravages of fire. And an oil- well which falls a victim to the fire-fiend is an untied fiend indeed. The Spindietop Oil-field in Texas was practically blotted out by a fire caused by the gas which was being thrown off coming into contact with a naked light within a confined area. There