eal (characteristic of the students of Temple University) he set
himself at the study of the whole subject. He began away back at the
second day of God's creation when this world was covered thick and deep
with that rich vegetation which since has turned to the primitive beds
of coal. He studied the subject until he found that the drainings
really of those rich beds of coal furnished the coal-oil that was worth
pumping, and then he found how it came up with the living springs. He
studied until he knew what it looked like, smelled like, tasted like,
and how to refine it. Now said he in his letter to his cousin, "I
understand the oil business." His cousin answered, "All right, come on."

So he sold his farm, according to the county record, for $833 (even
money, "no cents"). He had scarcely gone from that place before the
man who purchased the spot went out to arrange for the watering of the
cattle. He found the previous owner had gone out years before and put
a plank across the brook back of the barn, edgewise into the surface
of the water just a few inches. The purpose of that plank at that
sharp angle across the brook was to throw over to the other bank a
dreadful-looking scum through which the cattle would not put their
noses. But with that plank there to throw it all over to one side, the
cattle would drink below, and thus that man who had gone to Canada had
been himself damming back for twenty-three years a flood of coal-oil
which the state geologists of Pennsylvania declared to us ten years
later was even then worth a hundred millions of dollars to our state,
and four years ago our geologist declared the discovery to be worth
to our state a thousand millions of dollars. The man who owned that
territory on which the city of Titusville now stands, and those
Pleasantville valleys, had studied the subject from the second day of
God's creation clear down to the present time. He studied it until he
knew all about it, and yet he is said to have sold the whole of it for
$833, and again I say, "no sense."

But I need another illustration. I found it in Massachusetts, and I am
sorry I did because that is the state I came from. This young man in
Massachusetts furnishes just another phase of my thought. He went to
Yale College and studied mines and mining, and became such an adept as
a mining engineer that he was employed by the authorities of the
university to train students who were behind their classes. During his
senior ye