secured a room, and by still
greater luck I got acquainted the next morning at breakfast with three or
four genial and gentlemanly men, all "speculators" like myself, who had
come to spy into the plumpness and oiliness of the land. We hired a
sleigh and went forth on an excursion among the oil-wells. It was in
some respects the most remarkable day I ever spent anywhere.

For here was oil, oil, oil everywhere, in fountains flowing at the rate
of a dollar a second (it brought 70 cents a gallon), derricks or
scaffoldings at every turn over wells, men making fortunes in an hour,
and beggars riding on blooded horses. I myself saw a man in a blue
carter's blouse, carrying a black snake-whip, and since breakfast, for
selling a friend's farm, he had received 1250,000 as commission (_i.e._,
50,000 pounds). When we stopped to dine at a tavern, there stood behind
us during all the meal many country-fellows, all trying to sell
oil-lands; every one had a great bargain at from thirty or forty thousand
dollars downwards. The lowest in the lot was a boy of seventeen or
eighteen, a loutish-looking youth, who looked as if his vocation had been
peddling apples and lozenges. He had only a small estate to dispose of
for $15,000 (3,000 pounds), but he was very small fry indeed. My
companions met with many friends; all had within a few days or hours made
or lost incredible sums by gambling in oil-lands, borrowing recklessly,
and failing as recklessly. Companies were formed here on the spot as
easily as men get up a game of cards, and of this within a few days I
witnessed many instances. Two men would meet. "Got any land over?"
(_i.e._, not "stocked"). "Yes, first-rate; geologer's certificate; can
you put it on the market?" "That's my business. I've floated forty oil
stocks already, terms half profits." So it would be floated forthwith.
Gambling by _millions_ was in the air everywhere; low common men held
sometimes _thirty companies_, all their own, in one pocket, to be
presently sprung in New York or elsewhere. And in contrast to it was the
utterly bleak wretchedness and poverty of every house, and the miserable
shanties, and all around and afar the dismal, dark, pine forests covered
with snow.

I heard that day of a man who got a living by spiritually intuiting oil.
"Something told him," some Socratic demon or inner impulse, that there
was "ile" here or there, deep under the earth. To pilot to this "ile" of
beauty he was pai