The oil-fields of Texas have, perhaps, witnessed more “boom” periods than any other oil regions of the States. The Gulf coastal fields which embrace Texas and Louisiana, came into prominence some seventeen years ago, and they were not long in recording an output of over 5,000,000 tons in a single twelve months. The prolific districts of Spindle Top, Sour Lake, Humble, etc., attracted rapid attention, and the speculator in oil lands became immensely rich. But these boom periods cannot be said to be of much real value to the oil industry, for they are always followed by times of depression, when fortunes are lost almost as quickly as they have been made. To-day, the Gulf coast fields have settled down to a period of steady expansion; systematic development is taking place in every field, and, as in California, the policy of deep drilling has been eminently successful. [Illustration: THE GLEN POOL--ONE OF AMERICA’S OIL PRODUCING CENTRES] Space forbids my entering into details respecting the more recently developed or partially exploited fields of America, but it is safe to say that there is scarcely a single State that does not hold out hope for profitable oil development: this is evidenced by the large amounts of new capital which are to-day finding employment in regions which are only commencing their oil-field history. There is no other oil-producing country in the world where the petroleum industry has reached such a highly organized state as in the United States. Each producing field is connected by means of underground pipe-lines with the trunk pipe-line system, by which it is possible to pump oil from the most distant fields direct to the Atlantic seaboard. Some of the principal lines are hundreds of miles in length. In another chapter I deal with this wonderful system of oil transportation: it is, therefore, unnecessary here to more than mention it _en passant_. The oil-refining branch of the American petroleum industry is also particularly well organized and up to date, but with this subject, too, I deal at length elsewhere. [Illustration: A TYPICAL GEOLOGICAL SECTION SHOWING THE OIL SANDS]