It seems that eleven years ago, seeking for petroleum, the Dominion
Government had a shaft sunk here; their boring apparatus was heavy, the
plunger with its attachment weighing nearly a ton. At eight hundred feet
the operator broke into an ocean of gas, and the pressure blew him with
plunger and appliances into the air as a ball comes from a cannon-bore.
The flow of gas was so heavy that it clogged his drills with maltha and
sand, and from then to now the gas has been escaping. To-day the sound
of the escape ricochets up and down the palisaded channel so that we
cannot hear each other speak. There is gas enough here, if we could pipe
it and bring it under control, to supply with free illumination every
city of prairie Canada. It has destroyed all vegetation for a radius of
twenty yards; but, oddly enough, outside this range of demarcation the
growth is more luxuriant and comes earlier and stays later than that of
the surrounding country. One redheaded Klondiker, ignorant of gas and
its ways, ten years ago struck a match to this escaping stream, was
blown into the bushes beyond, and came out minus hair, eye-brows and red
beard--the quickest and closest shave he ever had.
Pages:
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82