s, but
is principally used in repairing the old ones.

The oil is next teamed to the Creek, and either pumped into decked
boats, to be transported in bulk, or, still in barrels, is loaded upon
the ordinary flatboats. During a large portion of the year, however,
neither of these can make the passage of the shallow Creek without the
aid of a "pond-fresh." This occurs when the millers near the head of the
Creek open their dams, and by the sudden influx of water give a gigantic
"swell" to the boats patiently awaiting it at every "farm," from
Schaeffer's to Oil City.

Sometimes, however, the boatmen, like the necromancer's student who set
the broomstick to bringing water, but could not remember the spell to
stop it, find that it is unsafe to set great agencies at work without
the power of controlling them. Last May, for instance, occurred a
pond-fresh, long to be remembered on Oil Creek, when the stream rose
with such furious, rapidity that the loaded boats became unmanageable,
crowding and dashing together, staving in the sides of the great
oil-in-bulk boats, and grinding the floating barrels to splinters. Not
even the thousands of gallons of oil thus shed upon the stormy waters
were sufficient to assuage either their wrath or that of the boatmen,
who, as their respective craft piled one upon another, sprang to "repel
boarders" with oaths, fists, boat-hooks, or whatever other weapons
Nature or chance had provided them. This scene of anarchy lasted several
days, and some cold-blooded photographer amused himself, "after" Nero,
in taking views of it from different points. Copies of these pictures,
commemorating such destruction of property, temper, and propriety as Oil
Creek never witnessed before, are hung about the "office" of the
Refinery, with which comfortable apartment the visitors finished their
tour.

Here they were offered the compliments of the season and locality in a
collation of chestnuts; and here also they were invited to inspect a
stereoscope, which, with its accompanying views, is considered on Tarr
Farm as admirable a wonder as was, doubtless, Columbus's watch by the
aborigines of the New World. Dearer to Miselle than chestnuts or
stereoscope, however, were the information and the anecdotes placed at
her service by the gentlemen of the establishment, albeit involuntarily;
and with her friends she shortly after departed from Barrows and
Hazleton's Refinery, filled with content and gratitude.

The noticeab