Original Document

Last week, at a depth of 71 feet, [E.L. Drake] struck a fissure in the rock through which he was boring, when, to his surprise and the joy of everyone, he found he had tapped a vein of water and oil, yielding 400 gallons of oil every 24 hours. The pumps now in use throw only five gallons per minute of water and oil into a large vat, when the oil rises to the top and the water runs out from the bottom. In a few days they will have a pump of three times the capacity of the one now in use, and then from 1,000 to 1,200 gallons of oil will be the daily yield... The excitement attendant on the discovery of this vast source of oil was fully equal to what I ever saw in California when a large lump of gold was accidentally turned out.



Credit: The New York Tribune, September 13, 1859.