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Here We Go Up! Up! Up!

Here We Go Up! Up! Up! image
Parent Issue
Day
3
Month
August
Year
1887
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

Tlicre are ahvays doga in tlie manger, no matter what great developments are being wrought out, and the natural gas craze lias brought out its opponents and proplieta of evil. One of the ingenious p9cudo-scientific canards recently gotten up is new being widely quoted in view of the prevalent interest In natural gas. Like the lunacy of the crank who prediets great disasters from the dlsturbanee of the equilibrium of the earth from the escape of the gas, wliich, he claims, buoys it up like a baloon, these terrible results are entirely imaginary, yet will be seriously belleved by many. Here is the article: Horing for natural gas shonld be prolilbited by stringent laws. The good people of Ohio and Indiana while trying to deyelop the gas magazines do not take time to consider that they are toying witli a forcé that may destroy this country and themselves. The danger that impends is well known to scientists. Some 200 years ago there was just such a craze about natural gas in China as we have in this country to-(iay. Gas wells were sunk with as much viiu aud vigor as the CelestiaU were capable of; but owing to a gas xplosion tiiat killed several millions of people and tore up and destroyed a large district of country, leaving a large inland sea, known on the mups as Lake Foo Chang, the boring of any more gas wells was tin-u and there prohibited by law. It 8eems, according to the Chinese history, that many large and heavy pressure gas wells were struck, and in some districts gas wells struek quite near each other. Gas was lighted as soon as struck, as is done in this country. It is stated that one wel!, with its usual pressure, by induction, or back draft, pulled down into the earth the burnlng gas of a smaller well, resulting in a dreadful explosión of a large district and destroying the inbabitants thereof. Lake Foo Chang rests on this district. The same catastrophe is imminent in this country unless the laws restrict further developments in boring so many wells. Should a similar explosión oceur, there will be sucli an upheaval as will dwarf tlie most terrible earthquakes ever known. All the country along the gas belt from Toledo through i iiiin, Indiana and Kentucky will be ripped up to the depth of 1,200 to 1,500 feet and flopped over like a pancake, leaving a cluism thro' which the water of Lake Krie will come howllng down, filling the MUsissippi vulleys and blotting them out forever. Some prompt action should be tiikeu to prevent the catastrophe.

Article

Subjects
Ann Arbor Courier
Old News