A point was selected where the oil appeared to bubble up most freely, a
slight excavation was made, and the oil suffered to collect. When a
tolerable stratum of petroleum had collected on the top of the water, a
coarse blanket was thrown upon the surface, that soon became saturated
with the oil, but rejected the water. The blanket was then taken out,
wrung into a tub or barrel, and the operation repeated.

But the demand was limited. Most families kept a supply for their own
use. Yet, for ordinary purposes, a pint bottle was sufficient for a
year's consumption. Indeed, half a dozen barrels were all that could be
disposed of throughout the entire oil region of Western Pennsylvania up
to a period when the researches of science were brought to bear upon its
purification as an illuminator. Almost every good housewife was supposed
to have a small store of Seneca oil, as it was popularly termed, laid by
in case of accident, for the medication of cuts and bruises; and not
even the most popular of the nostrums of the present day is so much
relied on as was this--nature's own medicine--by the early settlers in
these valleys.

In the mean time a well was bored on the bank of the Alleghany, within
two miles of the mouth of Oil Creek, in quest of salt water, with a view
to the manufacture of salt. This was some forty years ago. After sinking
the well through the solid rock to the depth of seventy or eighty feet,
oil presented itself in such quantities, mingled with the salt water, as
to fill the miners with the utmost disgust, and induce them to abandon
the well altogether. They were boring for salt, not for petroleum. Salt
was an article of utility and large demand; oil was of comparatively
small importance, and already a drug in the market, through the
spontaneous yield of nature. Again, a well was dug in the town of
Franklin, about thirty years ago, for the supply of a household with