It was a Pennsylvania man who first decided to bore for oil, and people thought him a little bit flighty to do such an unheard-of thing. When his oil well began to spurt out 35 barrels of oil a day, and people learned how valuable this oil was, the whole country got excited and in almost every neighborhood someone bored for oil. Of course in many states they were disappointed, but vast fortunes have been made from the oil wells of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Kansas, Oklahoma, California, and Texas. The Texas oil fields we visited were interesting although very greasy and smelly. The great derricks made the fields look as though a lot of war vessels were lying at anchor, for they resemble the masts of modern battle ships. These derricks hold the heavy steam drills which bore down into the earth. When a big gusher is struck, it sometimes spurts out a thousand barrels of oil a day, and you may be sure that no one is allowed to be careless with matches on the oil fields, for if a gusher or an oil tank gets afire, it is almost impossible to stop it, and immense damage is done. The oil is piped from the oil fields or taken in huge tanks to some city to be made into kerosene, gasoline, benzine, and scores of other useful articles. Nothing is wasted, for from the left-overs, perfumes, chewing-gum, and lots of other surprising things are made. These are called by-products. On some of the railroads oil is used instead of coal in the engines, and oil is also used in large quantities to keep the roadbed hard and free from dust. In many parts of the country there are fine oiled auto pikes. All of these things take a lot of petroleum, and it is a lucky thing for America that she is the oiliest country in the world. [Illustration: THE TOBACCO INDUSTRY IN KENTUCKY & TENNESSEE _Seed Head_ Curing Barn A Field of Ripe Tobacco Frame for Hauling Tobacco] Among all the sights that Columbus and his men saw in the new world, nothing amazed them more than to see the Indians "eating fire and breathing smoke from the nostrils," but evidently the explorers were not very much afraid to learn the trick from the Indians. When they went back to Spain they took a lot of tobacco with them, and the Spanish men and women soon had the smoking habit. It was Sir Walter Raleigh who started the fashion in the court of Queen Elizabeth in England. It seems as though he might have found something more useful to do. The custom grew and spread all over the world. It is lucky for us that the early explorers did not get the scalping habit along with the tobacco habit or by this time we Americans would be a scalpless race!