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rigs. Today, almost all wells are drilled with rotary rigs. Because rotary rigs are so dominant, and
because cable-tool rigs drilled a lot of wells before being supplanted by rotaries, let's find out more
about them.

4 Find synonyms in the text for the following words.

air poisoned
a game a gap
wax a ground
to advocate abundant
a supplement to arrive
a spring

5 Find antonyms in the text for the following words.
a surrender top of the hole
polluted to release
to extinguish soft
to rise to destroy
clear lacking

6 Say whether the following statements are true or false.

1 Sperm oil was clear, with a strong odor, light in weight and burned with a little smoke.
2 So much oil flowed into the stream that settlers named it Oil Creek.
3 William A. Smith began rising money to collect the oil from the Titusville spring.

4 The Seneca Oil Company, in New Heaven, Connecticut was formed only by Bissell.
5 One of the problems the company faced was how best to produce the oil from the land.
6 Seneca Oil’s purpose was to produce small amounts of oil.

7 Smith, a blacksmith and an experienced brine-well driller, was known to most everyone as
Uncle Billy.

8 Bissell’s well was the first well in the United States drilled for the sole purpose of finding and
producing oil.
9 Colonel Smith’s well in Titusville marked the beginning of the petroleum era in the United
States.
10 Higgins obtained land on top of the dome and, with several financial partners, drilled eight
unsuccessful wells.

7 Fill in the gaps.
a) gallon d) drilling g) honorary colonel
b) tap e) oil h) Edwin L. Drake
c) rock f) Titusville i) saltwater
One problem the company faced was how best to produce the ______(1) from the land. The
company directors knew that it was not efficient to simply let the oil flow out of the _______(2) and
scoop it from the ground. Others who had collected oil in this manner obtained merely a
_______(3) (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 of drilling a well to ______(4) the oil. _______(5)was not a new concept, for
people had been drilling ________ (6) wells in the Titusville area for years. Interestingly, many of

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