The early settlers did not collect great quantities of oil, probably not more than twenty-five or thirty barrels a year. In 1845 operations were being conducted for obtaining salt at a place above Pittsburg, on the Alleghany River. Several springs of petroleum were struck, but the value of the material was not known. In Ohio, over fifty years ago, borings were made for salt water. An account, descriptive of the work, said, “They have sunk two wells, which are now more than four hundred feet deep. One of them affords very strong and pure water, but not in great quantity. The other discharges such vast quantities of petroleum, or, as it is vulgarly called, Seneca oil, and besides is subject to such tremendous explosions of gas, as to force out all the water, and afford nothing but gas for several days. We make but little or no salt.” This story of the ignorance of the value of petroleum and the disappointment of the salt-makers at finding springs of petroleum instead of salt water, reminds one of the account of the Irishman who complained of his trouble in shooting ducks: “I was not able to fire a shot,” said he. “Every time I got sight of a duck another one swam in between him and me, and I could not kill anything.” [Illustration: PUMPING WELL ON OIL CREEK, VENANGO COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.] The first movement for utilizing this vast oil product was made, in 1854, by two New Yorkers, who organized a company, and secured the right to a certain spring on Oil Creek; but they made no progress until three years later, when Messrs. Bowditch and Drake, of New Haven, undertook to search for oil. In the winter of 1858 and ‘9, Colonel E. S. Drake completed arrangements for boring into the rock below the bed of the creek. On the 26th of August, 1859, oil was found at a depth of seventy-one feet. The drills sank into a cavity in the rock, and the oil rose to the surface. By means of a pump, four hundred gallons were obtained per day, and a larger pump being introduced, the supply reached one thousand gallons daily. This was the beginning of the borings for oil in that region. Every spot where oil was found, or was likely to be found, was carefully examined, and a great many wells were put down. Up and down the banks of Oil Creek derricks were erected and wells were sunk, and in a year or two the banks of the stream looked as if their natural product had been derricks rather than trees. The ground was perforated like a sieve, and if the holes had been a few feet, instead of a few inches, in diameter, it would have been dangerous walking round there for fear of tumbling through. The original depth of seventy-one feet was found insufficient, and the borings were frequently conducted to a depth of several hundred feet. I believe one well was sunk over two thousand feet, and a great many wells exceeded a thousand. Many of them never produced oil, and the man who had risked his money to bore these wells saw it vanish without affording anything in return.