V OIL WELLS, ALBERTA
Reading edition
I have never yet found a perfectly satisfactory oil field, as a subject for the Wonder of Work. The wells are not big enough, they are all alike, and there is no smoke. I confess I once thought an oil well gushed like a geyser, hundreds of feet in the air, and, when it was not doing that, belched forth gorgeous columns and clouds of smoke. I was told that the first was prevented with difficulty, and that by dropping a match into the pipe I could easily produce the second effect—though either might cost me a million; still, the fact remains, I have yet to find a really fine oil field—and a really fine effect over it. The refineries, however, make up for the wells.
