To shut out the weak brine above from the strong brine beneath they put in _tin-tubing_, around which they tied a _leather-bag_ filled with flax-seed. Thus, three generations ago, Joseph and David Ruffner, aided later by William Morris and his invention of “jars” in drilling-tools, stumbled upon the basis of casing, seed-bagging and boring oil-wells. All honor to the memory of these worthy pioneers, groping in the dark to clear the road for the great petroleum-boom! Dr. Hale continues: “Nearly all the Kanawha salt-wells have contained more or less petroleum, and some of the deeper wells a considerable flow. Many persons now think, trusting to their recollections, that some of the wells afforded as much as twenty-five to fifty barrels per day. This was allowed to flow over from the top of the salt-cisterns to the river, where, from its specific gravity, it spread over a large surface, and by its beautiful iridescent hues and not very savory odor could be traced for many miles down the stream. It was from this that the river received the nickname of ‘Old Greasy,’ by which it was long known by Kanawha boatmen and others.” At the mouth of Hawkinberry Run, three miles north of Fairmount, in Marion county, a well for salt was put down in 1829 to the depth of six-hundred feet. “A stinking substance gave great trouble,” an owner reported, “forming three or four inches on the salt-water tank, which was four feet wide and sixteen feet long.” They discovered the stuff would burn, dipped it off with buckets and consumed it for fuel under the salt-pan. J. J. Burns in 1865 leased the farm, drilled the abandoned well deeper, stuck the tools in the hole and had to quit after penetrating sixty feet of “a fine grit oil-rock.” Mr. Burns wrote in 1871: “The second well put down in this county was about the year 1835, on the West Fork River, just below what is now known as the Gaston mines. The well was sunk by a Mr. Hill, of Armstrong county, Pa., who found salt-water of the purest quality and in a great quantity, same as in the first well. He died just after the well was finished, so nothing was done with it. About the time this well was completed one was drilled in the Morgan settlement, just below Rivesville. Salt-water was found with great quantities of gas. Twenty-five years since the farmers on Little Bingamon Creek formed a company and drilled a well—I think to a depth of eight-hundred feet—in which they claimed to have found oil in paying quantities. You can go to it to-day and get oil out of it. The president told me he saw oil spout out of the tubing forty or fifty feet, just as they started the pump to test it. The company got to quarreling among themselves, some of the stockholders died and part of the stock got into the hands of minor heirs, so nothing more was done.”