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rels of the best quality of lubricating oil. A well on "Horseneck," when first opened, flowed 40 barrels, and afterward only water; but when properly tubed, and a new seed-bag supplied, it flowed 1000 barrels daily for three days.

On the territory from French Creek to Bull Creek, on the Ohio River and tributaries, operations are quite brisk. Twenty-five wells have been put down, and nearly fifty more are in process of boring. Many wells are going down on French Creek. The "Gillfillen" Well, on "Horseneck," is 250 feet deep, and at one time yielded 500 barrels per day. On "Rawson's" Run there are two wells, one of which yielded, when first opened, 700 barrels daily, and the other 45 barrels. On the Little Kanawha, at "Burning Spring," many productive wells have been found, yielding at one time from 25 to 1000 barrels daily.

The Ohio oil regions are located principally in Washington, Morgan, and Noble counties. The city of Marietta, situated at the mouth of Great Muskingum River, is one of the oldest places in the State, and is where all Ohio oil speculators congregate. The Ohio lands have very rich surface indications, and promise to be as fruitful as any yet discovered in the country. Capitalists from all parts are flocking to these new regions, and are taking up all of the lands they can get on the Great and Little Muskingum Rivers, Duck Creek, Cow Run, Pawpaw, East and West Branches of Duck Creek, Whipple Run, Wolf and Federal Creeks.

New oil lands have recently been discovered in Adams and Sciota counties, on the Ohio River, about ninety miles above Cincinnati. The surface indications are very promising-such as oil on the water in the marshes and water-courses, the upheaval of the sand rock, and hills of shale saturated with petroleum, one ton of which has produced by distillation fifty gallons of oil. Some 5000 acres have been purchased here by the New York and Ohio Petroleum Company, now operating.

In sinking a well for oil many curious and wonderful discoveries have been made. On the lands belonging to the Story and M'Clintock Petroleum Company, of New York, located on Caldwell's Creek, near Titusville, in sinking a well in October last the drillers passed through a layer of rock four feet in thickness, at the depth of forty feet; and another layer, six feet thick, at the depth of fifty-six feet; and at the depth of seventy feet, after passing through two thick layers of hard rock, the drill passed through a| log eighteen inches in diameter.

Oil wells are put down to a variety of depths, from 100 to 1100 feet. The mode of sinking a well is as follows: After the spot is decided upon, which is in most cases in the lower bottom lands, a stake is driven into the ground at the spot where the bore is to be commenced. A derrick is built, from twelve to sixteen feet square at the base, and about forty feet in height, running to a point at the top. The engine-house is erected, and the necessary ma

Sections of iron

chinery made ready within. pipe, six inches in diameter, are then driven into the ground, by means of a pile-driver, until the first layer of rock is reached, which, in most cases, is found at a depth of thirty-five or forty feet below the surface of the ground. Great care is taken that this iron pipe is driven plumb. After the rock is reached, and the earth within the pipe is removed, a block and tackle is rigged at the top of the derrick, and the drilling tools, weighing in some cases 900 pounds, are hoisted up and dropped into the driving-pipe down to the rock. A temper-screw is then attached to the top of the drill by means of a rope, and made fast to the end of a walking-beam. The walking-beam is a heavy horizontal piece of timber, supported in the centre by a Samson-post. The other end of the walking-beam connects with the driving pulley by means of a crank. The engine drives the pulley, the end of the walking-beam rises and falls, and thus the drill is raised and lowered at will. At intervals, during the process of drilling, a tool called a "Reamer" is inserted in the well, and the bore is increased to the proper size. A sand-pump is a metal case from five to ten feet in length, constructed with a valve at the bottom. This sand-pump is lowered into the well at intervals, and when it reaches the bottom the valve opens and admits the borings, and when the pump is raised the valve closes, and the contents are brought to the surface. After the bore is thus cleaned the drill is once more inserted, and the drilling is continued.

In boring a well a correct journal is kept, showing the different kinds of rock and earth passed through, and the exact points where water-courses, gas, or shows of oil are found. If a large vein of oil is struck, the well is immediately tubed with a 2 or 24 inch iron pipe, put together in sections. The water from watercourses and the surface water is prevented from flooding the well by means of a leathern bag, called a seed-bag, filled with flax-seed, which is placed on the outside of the tubing and within the earth chamber below the water-courses. When the flax-seed becomes saturated with water it swells, and completely shuts off all communication with the bottom of the well on the outside of the tubing.

If the vein of oil struck proves to be large, and the pressure of gas is sufficient, the oil will flow out without the aid of a pump; but in most cases a pump is required, in which case a copper working barrel is placed at the bottom of the well, and attached to the lower section of the tubing, with a valve at the bottom. The upper valve is connected with a sucker-rod, the end of which is attached to the end of the walking-beam. The tanks or tubs to receive the oil are mostly made of wooden staves, and are located at some distance from the well, and are connected with it by means of iron tubing attached to the spout of the pump, and through which the oil flows.

It is almost impossible to give the exact cost

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1.-Temper-Screw.-2. Drill-Stem.-3. Drill.-4. Reamer.-5. Round Reamer.-6. Pipe-Tongs.-7. Jarr.-8. Sand-Pump.

of sinking and completing a well at this time. Prices vary in different localities, and the cost of drilling ranges from $2 to $3 50 per foot. Including all of the necessary equipments, the present cost of sinking a well complete would be between five and six thousand dollars.

Naphtha, the lightest variety of petroleum, is found in Persia. It consists of carbon 82.20, and hydrogen 14.80, and is the only fluid free from oxygen. The next variety found is the petroleum proper, or American petroleum, which is a much heavier and thicker fluid. Another variety is found, called maltha, which is less fluid than petroleum, resembling tar or pitch. In Derbyshire is found still another variety, called "elastic bitumen," which is flexible and elastic, and about the weight of water. The last variety, called "compact bitumen" or asphaltum, is black in color and solid like coal, its specific gravity is 1 to 1.6. In the island of Trinidad is a lake, three miles in circumference, that is now one solid mass of black compact bitumen, which is supposed to have been at one time a lake of liquid petroleum.

No positive conclusions have yet been arrived at, giving any correct idea of how deep down in the earth the greater basins of petroleum are to be found. The oil from the largest flowing and pumping wells so far discovered is obtained from beneath the third sandstone. Several large producing wells have been sunk without finding this third sandstone. It is, however, believed by most of the experienced borers that the great basins are yet to be discovered at the depth of from 1500 to 3000 feet, where a neverfailing supply of petroleum will be reached. It is believed by some that the formation of petroleum is still rapidly going on in the laboratories of Nature, and that enormous quantities of carbonated hydrogen gas, which accompanies the oil, is undoubtedly evolved in its formation, and were it not constantly forming would soon all escape, and flowing wells would be an impossibility. It is impossible, however, to fathom the hidden mysteries of the petroleum world below. Astronomy can pierce the depths of space, but Geology can only guess what is going on a few thousand yards below our feet.

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V.-MILITARY ADVENTURES BEYOND | half of them steamers, and a force of about ten

THE MISSISSIPPI.

thousand men. The destination of this fleet was kept a profound secret from the country. Even the officers who accompanied it were ignorant of its purpose.

Gneral Banks Supersedes General Butler.-Farewell. Effects of Conciliation. The Opelousas Expedition. Marchings and Battles.-Corps d'Afrique.-The Texas Expedition. - Brief History of the Lone Star. - Sam Houston's Career.-Texan Secession.-Treason of Da"General," said one of them to the comvid E. Twiggs.-War Incidents.-Heroic Death.-Sa- mander, "we want to know what kind of clibine Pass Expedition.-The Red River Expedition.-mate we are going to, in order to know whethTriumphs and Disasters. - War's Romance and Rav-er to provide ourselves with thick or thin cloth

age.

Banks ordered

ing."

IN the fall of 1862 General Bcharge of an exeply, and th you your veil wie's bre

"Provide yourselves with both," was the re

pedition being fitted out at that port. This consisted of a fleet of nearly fifty vessels, one

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On the 15th of December this fleet arrived at New Orleans. Its object was to strengthen the

military power in Louisiana, redeem the entire State from rebel control. co-operate with General Grant above, in re-opening the Mississippi River, and operate in various expeditions in the trans-Mississippi district. General Banks superseded General Butler. The latter was ordered He issued on the to report at Washington. same day a farewell address to his soldiers. His language resembled, in its terse, laconic character, the eloquence of Napoleon, whom he may almost be said to have rivaled in the vigor of his administration:

"I greet you, my brave comrades, and say farewell! "This word-endeared as you are by a community of privations, hardships, dangers, victories, successes irilitary and civil-is the only sorrowful thought I have.

You have deserved well of your country. Without a murmur you sustained an encampment on a sand-bar so desolate that banishment to it, with every care and com

fort possible, has been the most dreaded punishment inflicted upon your bitterest and most insulting enemies. “You had so little transportation that but a handful could advance to compel submission by the Queen City of

the rebellion.

"Landing with a military chest containing but seventy-five dollars, from the hoards of a rebel government you have given to your country's treasury nearly half a million of dollars, and so supplied yourselves with the needs of your service that your expedition has cost your Government less by four-fifths than any other.

"By your practical philanthropy you have won the confidence of the oppressed race,' and the slave. Hailing you as deliverers they are ready to aid you as willing servants, faithful laborers, or, using the tactics taught them by your enemies, to fight with you in the field.

"You have met double numbers of the enemy and defeated them in the open field. But I need not farther enlarge upon the topic. You were sent here to do that. "I commend you to your commander. You are worthy

of his love.

"Farewell, my comrades! Again farewell!

He addressed himself also to the citizens of New Orleans; defended himself, for the first and last time, in a few brief words, from the calumnies that had been heaped upon him; and appealed to their own consciousness to testify that no one had suffered under his command who had conducted himself with propriety. In a few scorching words he unveiled the hypocrisy of England's assumed horror at his supposed severities:

"I do not feel that I have erred in too much harshness; for that harshness has ever been exhibited to disloyal enemies of my country, and not to loyal friends. To be sure I might have regaled you with the amenities of British civilization, and yet been within the supposed rules of civilized warfare. You might have been smoked

to death in caverns, as were the Covenanters of Scotland by the command of a general of the royal household of England; or roasted, like the inhabitants of Algiers during the French campaign; your wives and daughters might have been given over to the ravisher, as were the unfortuscalped and tomahawked, as our mothers were at Wyo. ming by the savage allies of Great Britain in our own Revolution; your property could have been turned over to indiscriminate loot,' like the palace of the Emperor of China; works of art, which adorned your buildings, might

nate dames in the Peninsular war; or you might have been

have been sent away, like the paintings of the Vatican; your sons might have been blown from the mouth of cannon, like the sepoys of Delhi; and yet all this would have been within the rules of civilized warfare, as practiced by the most polished and the most hypocritical nations of Europe. For such acts the records of the doings of some of the inhabitants of your city toward the friends of the

Union, before my coming, were a sufficient provocation and justification.

"But I have not so conducted. On the contrary, the worst punishment inflicted, except for criminal acts punishable by every law, has been banishment, with labor, to a barren island, where I encamped my own soldiers before marching here."

He recounted in the same terse and powerful language the principal acts of his administration, and conjured them to return to their allegiance; then declared plainly the only obstacle which prevented such return, and the way to

deal with it:

"There is but one thing that at this hour stands between you and the Government, and that is slavery. "This institution, cursed of God, which has taken its last refuge here, will be rooted out, as the tares from wreat, although the wheat be torn up with it.

"have given much thought to this subject. "I care among you by teachings, by habit of mind, by political position, by social affinity, inclined to sustain your domestic laws, if by possibility they might be with safety to the Union.

"Months of experience and of observation have forced the conviction that the existence of slavery is incompatible with the safety either of yourselves or of the Union. As the system has gradually gown to its present huge dimensions, it were best if it could be gradually removed; but it is better, far better, that it should be taken out at once than that it should longer vitiate the social, political, and family relations of your country.

"I am speaking with no philanthropic view's as regards the slave, but simply of the effect of savery on the master. See for yourselves. Look around you and say whether this saddening, deadening influence his not all but destroyed the very frame-work of

your society."

On the following day General Einks by pub lic proclamation assumed command of the Department of the Gulf, to which was now added the State of Texas. The change in conmanders was very generally believed to be in consequence of a desire on the part of the Government to The pofcy purpursue conciliatory measures. sued by General Banks confirmed this hypothesis. He suspended all public sales of property on account of the United States until 'urther orders. He released a number of politic.] prisoners. His inaugural proclamation was of a conciliatory and persuasive character. I was followed in ten days by another accompaying the President's emancipation proclamation the object of which seemed to be to demonstrae to the rebels' satisfaction that "the war is ot waged by the Government for the overthrow of slavery," and that the only way to secure its preservation was by a return to the Union.

These measures, however, accomplished o good results. They encouraged but did mt conciliate the rebels. The order which hal been preserved under the more stringent rule o his predecessor was followed by growing disor ders.

The soldiers were insulted in the streets Indecent and threatening letters were sent anonymously to various officers. Jefferson Davis was publicly cheered by crowds of men and boys. Thus experience demonstrated the necessity of rigor.

General Banks found himself compelled to He gave public nechange somewhat his tone. tice that offensive demonstrations of any kind

would be instantly and severely punished. He confirmed the order of General Butler assessing, for the support of the poor, those rich secessionists who had subscribed to the secession fund. And he thus demonstrated both his ability and his purpose to preserve order by measures of severity should those of conciliation fail.

Thus passed the winter of 1862-'63 in arranging the civil government, and in preparing for military movements in the spring. The military operations of General Banks in the Department of the Gulf naturally range themselves under four great expeditions. The Port Hudson, the Opelousas, the Texas, and the Red River expeditions. The first we have described in our last Number. It is to the other three we now direct our readers' attention.

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West of the Mississippi River lies an exceedingly rich and fertile section of country. It is intersected by numerous bayous and large lakes, and embraces much of the richest lands in the State. It is called by the Southerners "The Paradise of the South." The rebels, not anticipating any attack from the Union soldiers in this quarter, had put in their crops as usual. A small force was stationed in the heart of this section for its protection; and its efficiency was greatly increased by the presence of a small gunboat, the Cotton, which, threading with ease the innumerable bayous and lagoons, afforded very efficient protection against any mere land-forces. In the midst of this region, some seventy-five miles west of New Orleans, in a straight line, is Lake Chetimacha. It is connected with the VOL. XXX.-No. 179.-QQ

Gulf of Mexico by the Atchafalaya River. Near the head of this river, and not far from the shore of the lake is Brashear City, connected with New Orleans by the New Orleans, Opelousas, and Great Western Railroad, of which it is the present western terminus. Flowing into this lake is the Bayou Teche, which rises in St. Landre parish, and flows thence in a southeasterly direction through the towns of Opelousas, Martinsville, and Franklin. After the capture of the capital of the State the remains of the rebel State government had retreated to Opelousas, where the rebel Legislature was in fact assembling in accordance with a proclamation of the Governor on the very day on which General Banks assumed command of the Department of the Gulf.

In October previous General Butler had fitted out a double expedition for the purpose of destroying the rebel gun-boat, capturing rebel crops, especially cotton, and obtaining possession, or at least control, of this part of Louisiana. A fleet of five vessels left New Orleans, sailed up the Atchafalaya River, passed Brashear City, and entered the Teche River. Here, however, they found formidable obstructions and land batteries, and were compelled to withdraw from the pursuit of the rebel gun-boat until the land-forces should arrive.

Meanwhile General Weitzel, with a brigade of five regiments, left on transports, landed at Donaldsonville on the Mississippi River, and commenced a march across the country to join the fleet at Brashear City. About nine miles beyond Donaldsonville they met the enemy, who were drawn up in line of battle to receive them. But after a short though brilliant engagement, the rebels ignominiously fled, leaving two hundred and sixty-eight prisoners in General Weitzel's hands, with one piece of artillery. During the remainder of his march he met with little or no resistance.

The negroes flocked in great numbers to his camps, each bringing some palatable addition to the soldiers' otherwise hard fare. The people, surprised to be kindly treated, learned to regard as friends those whom they had been taught to look upon as enemies. The retreating rebels burned their warehouses, destroyed their crops, took whatever they wanted, and made no other recompense than Confederate scrip. The patriot army provided the rural population with a valuable market in New Orleans for such articles as their professed friends had not stolen or destroyed, and paid fair prices for what they took. Meanwhile the Opelousas Railroad, destroyed by the rebels, was repaired by a force moving directly west from New Orleans, and thus communication was opened between General Weitzel and the former place.

Joining the fleet at Brashear City early in January, the combined expedition proceeded up the Teche River. Here they found formidable preparations made to resist the further advance of the expedition. Rifle-pits and concealed batteries were planted on the shore. Torpedoes

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