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Updated: June 29, 2025


It took us forty-seven minutes by my watch; or, rather, it took Raffles; and never in my life have I seen anything more deliberately done. My part was simply to stand by with the dark lantern in one hand, and a small bottle of rock-oil in the other.

That's his centre-bit, and this is the bottle of rock-oil he's supposed to have kept dipping it in to prevent making a noise. Here's the revawlver he used when he shot at a gentleman on the roof down Horsham way; it was afterward taken from him on the P. & O. boat before he jumped overboard." I could not help saying I understood that Raffles had never shot at anybody.

Long teams of waggons come laden with casks of oil on the roads approaching the wells. Sheds for repairing the casks, and storing the oil, are ranged around. Every one gives indubitable signs by their appearance of their occupation, while rock-oil, as it is called, is the only subject of conversation in the neighbourhood.

In another minute we were at work upon the study-door, I with the tiny lantern and the bottle of rock-oil, he with the brace and the largest bit. The Yale lock he had given up at a glance. It was placed high up in the door, feet above the handle, and the chain of holes with which Raffles had soon surrounded it were bored on a level with his eyes.

Its presence as an oily scum on the surface of ponds and streams had long been known, and among the Indians this "rock-oil" was highly appreciated as a vehicle for mixing their wax paint, and for anointing their bodies; in later years it was gathered in a rude way by soaking it up in blankets, and sold at a high price for medicinal purposes only, under the name of Seneca rock oil, Genesee oil, Indian oil, etc.

In most cases, artesian wells have been bored for purely economical or industrial purposes, such as to obtain good water for domestic use or for driving light machinery, to reach saline or other mineral springs, and recently, in America, to open fountains of petroleum or rock-oil.

When that was eaten up they turned their attention to me, and over and over again they tried to break in. They had better have left me alone, for though they were strong enough to have pulled away the rocks that blocked the entrance, they could not stand fire. As I had any amount of rope, I used to soak it in rock-oil, set it on fire, and shove it out of the entrance.

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