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- What did Colonel Drake and Uncle Billy use to drill the Oil Creek
site?
- What is the walking beam?
- What makes the bit drill?
- What is a bailer?
- What problem led to cable-tool drilling’s demise?
- How do the rotary crew members put the bit on the bottom of the
hole?
- What is a rotary table?
- Why does not a rotary rig crew have to bail cuttings?

Cable-Tool and Rotary Drilling
Not counting picks and shovels, two drilling techniques have
been available since people first began making holes in the ground:
cable-tool drilling and rotary drilling. Both methods originated a long
time ago. Over 2,000 years ago, for instance, the Chinese drilled wells
with primitive yet efficient cable-tool rigs. (They were still using
similar rigs as late as the 1940s.) To quarry rocks for the pyramids, the
ancient Egyptians drilled holes using hand-powered rotating bits.
They drilled several holes in a line and stuck dry wooden pegs in the
holes. They then saturated the pegs with water. The swelling wood
split the stone along the line made by the holes.

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