“‘Surface shows’ have been the fascination of many. The places of most copious escape to the surface were regarded as the favored spots where ‘the drainage from the coal measures, in defiance of the laws of gravity and hydro-dynamics, had obligingly deposited itself. Such shows’ were always illusory. A great ‘surface show’ is a great waste; where nature plays the spendthrift she retains little treasure in her coffers. The production of petroleum in quantities of economical importance has always been from reservoirs in which nature has been hoarding it up, instead of making a superficial and deceptive display of her wealth.” Applying this method, the place to find petroleum is where not a symptom of it is visible! An honest Hibernian, asked his opinion of a notorious falsifier, answered that “he must be chock-full ov truth, fur bedad he niver lets any ov it git out!” The above explanation is of this stripe. “Flee to the mountains of Hepsidam” rather than attempt to bore for oil in localities having “shows” of the very thing you are after! These dreadfully deceptive “shows” show that the oil has got out and emptied the “reservoirs in which nature had been hoarding it up!” This is a pretty rough joke on poor deluded nature! How could these “surface shows” have strayed off anyhow, unless connected with reservoirs of genuine petroleum at the outset? The first wells on Oil Creek and at Franklin were drilled beside “surface shows” which revealed the existence of petroleum and supplied Cary, August, McClintock and Hulings with the coveted oil. These wells produced petroleum “in quantities of economical importance,” demonstrating that “such shows were _not_ always illusory.” Is nature buncoing petroleum-seekers by hanging out a Will-o’-the-Wisp signal where there is “little treasure in her coffers?” The failures at Slippery Rock and divers other places resulted from the fact that the seepages had traveled considerable distances to find breaks in the rocks that would permit of the “most copious escape.”