The gas, he said,
is now being used as the basis of a varied line of manufactures, the
annual products of which aggregate many millions of dollars, and it is
driving, besides the iron and steel mills of Pittsburgh, potteries and
brick works, over forty glass furnaces and a long list of factories in
which cheap power is a desideratum. The gas is the product of ages,
which has been accumulated in the porous limestone of Ohio and Indiana.
It has been produced so slowly that when once exhausted it will take
many thousands of years for it to again accumulate in sufficient
quantities to be used, even if the elements necessary for its production
were preserved, which he thought was not at all probable. The pressure
which forces the gas out with such tremendous power that it sometimes
reaches 1,000 pounds pressure per square inch, is not due to the
pressure of the gas itself, but to the hydrostatic pressure brought to
bear by the column of salt water that enters the porous stratum of rock
containing the gas at the sea-level, and which by its weight tends to
force the gas out. To the explanation and elucidation of this
phenomenon, Professor Orton's paper was more especially devoted. The men
who are engaged in the practical development of gas and oil fields, said
he, made great account of rock-pressure. It is the first fact they
inquire after in a new gas-field.
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