"
The value of the foregoing references is to be found in the testimony
they offer as to the duration of the supply of natural gas. Whether we
look to the eternal flaming fissures of the Caucasus, or to New York,
Pennsylvania, and Ohio, there is much to encourage the belief that the
flow of natural gas may be, like the production of petroleum, increased
rather than diminished by the draughts made upon it. Petroleum, instead
of diminishing in quantity by the millions of barrels drawn from western
Pennsylvania in the last quarter of a century, seems to increase,
greater wells being known in 1884 than in any previous year, and prices
having fallen from two dollars per bottle for "Seneka oil" to sixty
cents per barrel for the same article under the name of crude petroleum.
Hence we may assume that, as new pipe-lines are laid, the supply of
natural gas available for use in the great manufacturing district of
Pittsburg and vicinity will be increased, and the price of this fuel
diminished in a corresponding ratio.
Natural gas is now supplied in Pittsburg at a small discount on
the actual cost of coal used last year in the large manufacturing
establishments, an additional saving being made in dispensing with
firemen and avoidance of hauling ashes from the boiler-room.
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