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Pre-reading and while-reading tasks
3 Scan the text and answer the following questions.

- When did the story of oilwell drilling begin?
- What was the best oil to burn in lamps?
- What did, besides water, the creek carry?
- What two main problems did the Seneca Oil Company face?
- What was the purpose of the Seneca Oil Company?
- What was one of the first things Drake and William A. Smith did?
- What well was the first drilled in the United States for the sole purpose of finding and
producing oil?
- What well marked the beginning of the petroleum era in the United States?
- When and where did the prospectors find gold?
- What is a wall cake?

HISTORY

The story of oilwell drilling in the United States begins in the mid-1800s, at the dawn of the
industrial revolution. It was a time when people were beginning to need something better than
candles to work and read by. Responding to the demand for reliable lighting, companies began
making oil lamps that were brighter than candles, lasted longer, and were not easily blown out by an
errant breeze.
One of the best oils to burn in these lamps was sperm-whale oil. Sperm oil was clear, nearly
odorless, light in weight, and burned with little smoke. Virtually everyone preferred whale oil, but
by the mid-1800s, it was so scarce that only the wealthy could afford it. The New England whalers
had all but hunted their quarry to extinction. Thus, the time was ripe for an inexpensive lamp oil to
replace whale oil. At the same time, steam-powered machines that required good-quality lubricants
were becoming common.
About this time - 1854 - a New York attorney named George Bissell received a sample of an
unusual liquid from a professor at Dartmouth College. Bissell and the professor had met previously
and had discovered a mutual interest in finding a whale-oil substitute. The professor wanted
Bissell's opinion of the liquid's value as a lamp oil and lubricant. The sample had been collected
near a creek that flowed through the woods of Crawford and Venango counties in northwestern
Pennsylvania. Besides water, the creek also carried an odorous, dark-colored substance that burned
and, when applied to machinery, was a good lubricant. The substance was, of course, oil. Because it
flowed out of the rocky terrain in and near the creek, people called it "rock oil." Indeed, so much oil
flowed into the stream that settlers named it Oil Creek.
The sample came from land next to the creek just southeast of the town of Titusville, where
the oil seeped from the rocks in the form of a spring.

THE DRAKE WELL, 1850s

After examining the oil sample, Bissell was convinced that refined rock oil would burn as
cleanly and safely as any of the oils available at the time, including whale oil. He also believed that
it would be a good lubricant. Bissell thus began raising money to collect the oil from the Titusville
spring and to market it for illumination and lubrication. It was a difficult proposition; after a false
start or two and much wheeling and dealing, Bissell, a Connecticut banker named James M.
Townsend, and others formed what ultimately became the Seneca Oil Company, in New Haven,
Connecticut.
One problem the company faced was how best to produce the oil from the land. The
company directors knew that it was not efficient to simply let the oil flow out of the rock and scoop
it from the ground. Others who had collected oil in this manner obtained merely a gallon (a few
litres) or two a day. Seneca Oil's purpose was to produce large amounts of oil and market it in the
populous northeastern U.S. Somebody in the company - no one knows who - came up with the idea

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