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Nelson had been fooled by a showing of oil in an ordinary farm well, and by a generous seepage into a running stream some distance away. Not until a considerable sum had been spent in actual drilling operations, however, did those seepages diminish sufficiently to excite suspicion sufficiently, in fact, to induce the crew to pump the water well dry. This done, an amazing fraud had been discovered.
The bitumens are represented in the island by asphalt, a low-grade coal, and seepages of petroleum. At least, several writers tell of coal in the vicinity of Havana, but the substance is probably only a particularly hard asphaltum. The only real coal property of which I have any knowledge is a quite recent discovery. The story was told me by the man whose money was sought to develop it.
It has been the creation of no one class or group but of many men of many kinds the hardy, keen-eyed prospector with a "nose for oil" who spent his months upon the deserts and in the mountains searching for seepages and tracing them to their source; the rough and two-fisted driller, a man generally of unusual physical strength, who handled the great tools of his trade; the venturesome "wildcatter," part prospector, part promoter, part operator, the "marine" of the industry, "soldier and sailor too"; the geologist who through his study of the anatomy of the earth crust could map the pools and sands almost as if he saw them; the inventor; the chemist with still and furnace; the genius who found that oil would run in a pipe these and many more, in most of the sciences and in nearly all of the crafts, have created this American industry.
Nelson's dickering under cover for more acreage near what he's got, but I tipped off who he was." "He fell easy, eh?" Stoner grinned. "He was so pleased with himself at swindling an invalid, and so scared somebody would discover those seepages that he couldn't hardly wait to sign up.
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