Dyed-in-the-wool Tarentumites insist that natural gas caused the suspension of work, flowing into the shaft at such a gait that the miners refused to risk the chances of a speedy trip to Kingdom Come by suffocation or the ignition of the subtile vapor. This was the case with two shafts at Tidioute and Petroleum Centre, neither of them nearly the depth of “the daring piece of engineering” which “set the pace” for enterprises of this novel brand. The New-York Enterprise-and-Mining-Company projected the former, intending to sink a shaft eight feet by twelve to the third sand and tunnel the rock for petroleum by wholesale. The shaft reached oil-producing sand at one-hundred-and-sixty feet. The miners worked in squads, eight-hour turns. Holes had been drilled into the rock at various angles and a lot of conglomerate brought to the surface. Once a short delay occurred in changing squads, during which the air-pump, employed to exhaust the gases from the pit and supply pure ozone from above, was let stand idle. Mr. Hart was seated on a timber across the shaft when the men were ready to go down. As was the custom, a man dropped a taper into the opening to test the air. Natural gas had filled the shaft and it ignited from the burning torch, causing a terrific explosion. The workmen were thrown in all directions and lay stunned and burned. When they regained consciousness Hart was nowhere to be seen and flames rose from the mouth of the pit to the tree-tops. Hart’s body was eventually recovered from the bottom of the shaft, horribly mangled and charred. Work was abandoned and the hole was partly filled up and covered, none caring to pry farther into the petroleum-secrets of nature. Were meddlers who seek to poke their noses into the secrets of other people dealt with thus summarily, what a thinning out of the population there would be! Peterson & Irwin’s treatment of the Donnelly well brings out clearly that the sole object was to procure oil. This is important, in view of the claim that the first well drilled exclusively for petroleum was put down in 1859. Practically the two Pittsburgers anticipated this by three years, a circumstance to remember when considering the varied events which led up to the petroleum development. “We do homage to the claims of the ancients and neglect those of later date.”