USA > California > Santa Barbara County > History of Santa Barbara county, California, with illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 100
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Among the successful apiarists of the two counties, Mr. R. Wilkins has a place. His apiary is located at the Sespe, twenty-seven miles from San Buenaven- tura, and eleven miles from Santa Paula. Mr. Wil- kins has about 450 stands of bees, constituting one of the most extensive establishments on the coast, it is said. The crop of honey is canned on the place, and finds a ready and profitable sale in Europe, where it is shipped direct.
In order to economize the exertions of the bees, and enable them to concentrate their exertions solely on the production of honey, a very great invention has been introduced by bee-fanciers. This is the extrac- tion of the liquid honey from the comb by means of centrifugal force, by which the comb is preserved in a nearly unimpaired form; and being restored to the hives, is refilled with honey by the bees, whose time is not wasted in providing entirely new receptacles. The comb, it should be said, is of comparatively little value in commerce, and the construction of it is a waste of energy that is thus avoided. The process is thus simply described :-
The bees in this favorable climate were usually hived in any common box, barrel or tea-chest. But the apiarists are now manufacturing hives of the most convenient and approved style. They no longer kill the bees in order to obtain the honey, but have movable tops to the hives, and let the bees build their comb in frames which are easily taken out and replaced, with very little disturbance to the busy little workers. With a small hand furnace the bee man blows smoke into the hive, and can then handle the sweet product or the bees themselves with com- parative impunity. With a long, sharp knife, kept hot by being plunged in boiling water, a thin slice is cut off the cake of comb on both sides. The frame of comb is then put in between two sheets of wire net- ting, in an upright cylinder, and rapidly revolved, so as to throw out the honey on the sides of the cylin- der. It runs down to an aperture at the bottom, and passes through a sieve and other strainers into a large tank, from which it is drawn off by a faucet into cans about the size of kerosene cans, and weigh-
ing about sixty-two pounds each. The refuse is melted into cakes and sold. The good comb, in the frames referred to, is put back, and the bees begin at once to refill it. Some comb has been thus filled by them seven times in one season, they having to lose no time in making new comb. Bee men become intensely interested in the practical study of the hab- its and profits of bees. The Italian bees are found best, and are being bred largely. They are finer look- ing, with gold bands round their bodies, are hardier. and are less irritable.
Wild bees are extremely plentiful all through the Coast Range of California, and a very considerable quantity of honey is annually extracted from the trees and rocks which they inhabit. This honey is far inferior in every aspect to that made by domesti- cated bees, being dark, uninviting in appearance, and sometimes positively poisonous to the human system, from some injurious constituent. Tubfuls of it are occasionally procured by cutting down the trees and " smoking out" the bees.
In the canon west of the Mission Creek is a huge. rock, almost perpendicular, and standing about 150. feet high. The face is marked with three or four deep. crevices, two of which stop at abont 100 feet from the bise. In these crevices bees have swarmed for years, and have their nests. This monster hive was discovered some seventeen years ago by some Mexi- cans, and has never been distu bed. It is calculated that the rock must contain several tons of honey, but it is almost impossible to get at it. The neighborhood abounds with wild bees.
THE VENTURA COUNTY BEE ASSOCIATION
Was organized August 28, 1875, at Santa Paula-J. A. Shaw, Chairman. The other members were: T. W. Jepson, Cyrus Kinney, John S. Iannee, K. W. Henney, HI. L. Atwood, Wait Geary, E. Boncecow, Daniel Roudebush, John G. Corey, I. Dodson, Josiah Keene, E. Skaggs, George Barron, Mrs. Phebe Bar- ron and F. S. S. Buckman. The object of the society was to inform themselves, by mutual relations of experience and otherwise, of the best method of man- aging bees.
GOLD MINING.
The discovery of gold in the San Emidio Monnt- ains has been particularly referred to on page 74 of this volume; mention has also been made, from time to time, of the subsequent discoveries and partial workings of other veins or placers; but the results are not of great importance. The mining region, though extensive, is not inviting for capitalists. The quartz veins are not well defined nor extensive. The wall-rocks which confine the mineral deposit to one channel, serving the same purpose to a vein as the channel does to a river, are wanting. In mining par- lance, there is no " true fissure." Sinall veins or seams of very rich quartz are being worked on a small scale with profit.
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HISTORY OF VENTURA COUNTY.
In October, 1875, the Frazer Mine yielded a thou- sand dollars as the product of two weeks' crushing with ten stamps-a yield corresponding to about $7.00 per ton of quartz. This result, provided the vein be of sufficient extent, is ample enough to satisfy almost any one not possessed of a very avaricious disposi- tion. This mine is described by the Kern County Gazette, of a later date, as being the richest and most extensively worked of any in the district. It included 1,800 feet on the vein, was owned by San Francisco and Los Angeles capitalists, and was valued at $75,000. The Gazette mentions the "New Constitu- tion Mine," owned by Mr. Parker, as producing ore worth $30.00 per ton, and occasionally mining as high as $40.00. The rock from most of the claims was reduced by arastras.
The country in which this mining district is located is in the northern part of Ventura County. It is thus described by Judge Hines, and F. L. Fos- ter, now of the Contra Costa Gazette, but formerly a miner in that region :-
" The mountains in the northern part of Santa Bar- bara and Ventura are from 6,000 to 7,500 feet high, with canons intervening 3,000 feet or more deep. Granite or syenite forms the backbone, cropping out of every range and even overlapping the slates in many places. The canons are hemmed in by pre- cipitous walls which are ascended with difficulty, but when the summits are reached, they afford mag- nificent views of neighboring summits and cañons. The most magnificent timber is found here. One pine tree, noways remarkable for size, measured, five feet above the ground, twenty-nine feet in circumference, and was a hundred feet or more to a limb. The sides of the mountains are frequently covered with underbrush, which at a distance seems like a carpet of green, but on a nearer approach is found to be fifteen or twenty feet high, and almost impassable, forming a fine retreat for grizzlies and other wild animals which abound. The geology of the country seems to be uncertain. Granite forms the axes of the higher mountains; slates exist in a narrow belt, sometimes a few miles in width, some- times but a few hundred feet. In some places the slate is overlaid by a conglomerate, a relic of the tertiary period, bordering the marine tertiary which crowds it in many places. The conglomerate is sometimes 1,000 feet thick, and is composed of wash from the granite mountains, and contains quartz, pebbles, and other debris resulting from the breaking down of rock containing gold-bearing quartz veins. Fine streams of water, abounding with trout, flow from these canons. On the Sespe Creek a hot spring breaks out, which is, perhaps, superior to any other spring in the State for volume, flowing from 600 to 1,000 miner's inches of water. It is in such volume and of so high a temperature that it is not possible to bathe in it until it has ran a mile or more along the cañon. It appears to contain no mineral substances, and in the course of a mile or two becomes a splendid trout stream, with no per- ceptible taste."
The crossing, back of the Ojai Valley, has an alti- tude of 4,000 feet. Pine Mountain, to the north- ward, is about 7,500 feet high.
In other parts of the counties of Santa Barbara and Ventura reports of gold and silver discoveries have been frequently made. Some years since Judge Robinson, of Ventura, picked up on the beach a quartz bowlder containing gold. During the summer of 1877 Francisco Cordero found rich gold-bearing quartz about thirty miles from Santa Barbara. In July, 1877, there was the report of an important discovery of quartz in the mountains above Monte- cito. The contained sulphurets alone in a ton of rock were said to be worth $75.00. The same parties claimed the discovery of rich tin ore also. In the previous year it had been announced in Ventura that rich quartz had been discovered in the Guadalupe district paying $20.00 to the ton.
The Lompoc Record, in October, 1881, reported that valuable gold discoveries were being made thirty miles from Lompoc, up the Santa Ynez River.
H. H. Lambert, James Nash, A. B. Walsworth, H. H. Martin, C. B. Harrison, and others reported making two or three dollars per day, working the beach sand at the mouth of Los Alamos Creek, blankets being used to save the gold. In August, 1872, gold mines were discovered at Point Sal. It was reported that an old tunnel with various tools in it was un- earthed there.
As late as October, 1879, fifteen or twenty men were making small wages mining at Point Sal for gold. Discoveries of gold are occasionally reported in the vicinity of Santa Barbara. It is probable that the source of it is in the beds of conglomerated sandstone which contains much quartz gravel, the bowlders sometimes weighing fifty pounds or more. The geologist, in examining the mountains around Santa Barbara, will see evidences of a former plain, on which rested gravel beds a thousand feet or more in thickness. These plains reached the granite or syenite mountains as granite bowlders are frequent. On the gradual elevation of the mountain ranges north of Santa Barbara these conglomerated beds would be worn away from the summits exposing the older sandstones and marine formations. Small quantities of gold would be found in the gulches and ravines also along the sea-shore, where the action of the waves broke down the sandstones. Such is the origin of the Point Sal Gold Mines, also the mines on the College Rancho. Although there is a little gold everywhere, there is not enough to afford any remu- nerative industry.
SILVER.
It is deemed to be a historical fact that the Fran- ciscan friars, the founders of the early missions, worked silver mines situated somewhere in the rough, mountainous, and almost inaccessible country lying in the northern part of Santa Barbara County. As evidence of this, which is the popular belief, there is a tradition among the older inhabitants of the region, which fixes upon certain localities as having been the scene of their mining. There have been at
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MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS.
varions times, announcements of the discovery of old abandoned shafts, tunnels, smelting apparatus, and similar ruins, telling the story of former oecu- pancy. The Times, of August 27, 1870, reports the discovery of some furnaces, once used apparently to smelt silver, in the mountains north of the town. Also rich float roek, but no ledge or vein in place.
The Hon. A. G. Escandon induced an old Indian to point out to him the locality of an abandoned mine with which the savage was acquainted. The place was found, after considerable search, and near it were to be seen tunnels, piles of refuse ore, rude smelting furnaces, etc. This mine is situated in the San Emidio Mountains, forty or fifty miles east of Santa Barbara. The publication of this re-discovery by Mr. Escandon aroused considerable interest in the matter. It then came to be reported that in former times bullion has been seen lying in the mission buildings, in large quantities. It was told that npon the secularization of the mission lands, this bullion had been removed from the country by the priests, and the mines and smelting works concealed in the most thorough manner, and the Indian miners were compelled to swear never to reveal the places of working, under pain of immediate death if they failed to keep their oaths. It is said that thirty years ago some of the Indians who had helped to run the tun- nels in the mountains and bring ont the ore, were still living, and knew where the mine was, but the terrible death that awaited them, should they reveal its location, was ever impending, and they could not be induced to reveal the place. At that time Russel Heath and a Jesuit priest of Ventura undertook to find the mine. An old Indian who had worked there was promised absolution and exemption from the penalty if he would reveal it. The Indian led them to the smelting works, which were said to be some four or five miles from the mines, but he could not be induced to go further. The Indian described the manner in which the mine had been concealed. It was done, he said, by leaning posts against the tun- nel opening, and covering these with earth.
Mr. Heath represents the whole country in the sup- posed vicinity of the mine as very rough, and appar- ently subject to frequent land-slides, which might read- ily obliterate quite extensive mining works. The loca- tion was considered favorable, being on the junction of slate and granite.
The country which contains some of these mines is to some extent an unknown land, and is the para- dise for hunters and tourists. It probably affords the best field for scientific exploration, combined with hunting and fishing, to be found in California. It is the great water-shed for the rivers which flow into the sea, as well as into the San Joaquin Valley.
SULPHUR
Exists in small quantities in many places, notably around Sulphur Mountain. A few miles west of San Buenaventura it permeates the soil so that when set
on fire, it slowly burns, and makes a miniature vol- cano, making the ground so hot as to be uncomfortable to walk over. In several places the exudation is so plentiful as to create a moderately strong sulphuric acid. In the soil it forms springs of bitter water, possessing purgative properties.
Many companies have been formed to utilize these deposits, none of which, however, have effected any practical results, as the facility with which the im- mense beds of natural sulphur in the State of Nevada could be mined and the sulphur transported to San Francisco, has completely monopolized the market. As a matter of probable importance in indicating the formation and presence of petroleum, it is a subject of much interest.
PETROLEUM.
Rock oil is a natural product of certain geological formations, sometimes rising to the surface through natural channels, but oftener obtained by boring. It was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and by Pliny and other writers was designated bitumen, a word derived from the name of pitch. It was of no value until in late times, when it has become one of the most important articles of commerce. It occurs in rocks of nearly all geological ages, from the lower silurian to the latest tertiary. It is asso- ciated most abundantly with argillaceous slates and sandstones, but is also found permeating limestones, giving them a bituminous odor. From these it often exudes, floating away upon the natural water channels of the region, or rising in springs. It often exists in subterranean cavities, situated along gentle anticlinals in the barren rocks of the region, the oil having collected in these from the subjacent strata, and having been retained by the impervious over- lying sandstones. Petroleum is very widely distrib- uted, yet there are a few localities especially noted for its oeeurrence, among which are the following: Amiuno, in northern Italy; Baker, on the shores of the Caspian, which is now looked upon as chief among the deposits in the Eastern Hemisphere; Ran- goon, in Burmah; the Island of Trinidad, where a lake of petroleum exists-a wonder to most geogra- phers, but in no way more remarkable than the southern California deposits; and portions of Ontario, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, and finally California.
In Parma and Modena, Italy, petroleum has been extracted from the earth sinee 1640, the time of its discovery, the method being to sink pits in which the oil is collected by slow exudation from the rocks. Here no means of refining has ever been practiced, and, indeed, the quantity produced is insignificant. In Baker, in Trans-Causeasia, the process of collect- ing the oil is the same, but the deposits are of vast extent, covering a traet of country twenty-five by one-half miles in area, in porous argillaceous sand- stone belonging to the tertiary period. In the vicinity are volcanic rocks from which flow heavy
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HISTORY OF VENTURA COUNTY.
petroleum. The wells are sunk sixteen to twenty feet deep. The Pennsylvania system of sinking wells has of late been adopted, and the oil production has become so immense as to require a line of pipes by which it is transferred quite to the ports of the Black Sea, and, being refined, is sold in all accessible por- tions of southern Europe at a wholesale price of less than ten cents per gallon, thereby threatening to drive Pennsylvania oil from the markets.
The oil distriet of Rangoon is nearly as remarkable, and has, even under native rule, supplied the de- mands of the whole kingdom of Burmah. The wells are in beds of sandy clays, which rest on sandstones and argillaceous slates, and are sometimes sunk to the depth of sixty feet. Under the slates is said to be eoal; but all the strata are doubtles tertiary. The number of wells in the Rangoon District exceeds 500, and the production for many years has been 400,000 hogsheads annually. The natives use the oil (unrefined) in lamps, as a protection against inseets, and as medicine. The latter was the only use which was known for the Pennsylvania petro- leum until twenty-five years ago, although the existenee of oil there had been known since the days of Montealm and Duquesne's occupancy of the country. The deposits at Oil Creek were developed in 1859 and 1860, and an impetus given to the extraction of petroleum, which has revolutionized vast industries and changed the condition of the eiv- ilized world.
Various opinions have been advaneed as to the origin of petroleum, all except recent ones based on the supposed decomposition of vegetable or ani- mal matter. Some have supposed it to be the result of changes of woody fiber, by which less hydrogen and more earbon was set free than in the formation of coal. Again, it has been judged to be the product of the natural distillation of bituminous shales and eoal. Lesquereux attributes its origin to the partial decomposition of low forms of marine vegetation. Berthelot advanees the theory that by complex ehanges which the interior of the earth is under- going petroleum is being continually set free. It may now be assumed that petroleum is the normal or primary produet of the decomposition of marine, animal or vegetable organism, chiefly the former, and that nearly all other varieties of bitumen are produets of a subsequent decomposition of petroleum, differing both in kind and degree. The occurrence of petroleum in the lower paleozoic rocks of Ontario and Pennsylvania, which contain no trace of land plants, shows that it has not in all cases been derived from terrestrial vegetation, but may have been formed from marine animals or plants, an opinion further strengthened by finding in late rocks, eon- taining abundanee of fo sil marine animals, a petro- leum rich in nitrogen. This is the character of the petroleum of Ventura and neighboring counties. Though popularly supposed to have some connection
with eoal, the faets go to prove that it has not, for the larger deposits occur many miles from coal de- posits, and in far different strata. In Ventura the oil issues from shales interstratified with coarse sand- stones of enormous thickness, and nowhere contain- ing coal.
Petrolenin from different localities varies greatly in character. It is ordinarily greenish by reflected light, and brown by transmitted light, and more or less deep and opaque, though some varieties are reddish. The Ventura oil is usually leek-green when fresh, but speedily becoming darker, and changing in the course of time to asphaltum. The quality of different crude oils is indicated by their speeific gravity, which is usually taken by Beaume's scale, the higher degrees marking the lighter oils, which are the more esteemed. The best, such as those of Oil Creek, rise to 46° Beaume; the heavier kinds, as those of Sulphur Mountain, in this county, and in Mecca, Pennsylva- nia, sinking to 26° or so, corresponding to a specifie gravity of about 0.90. The lightest natural oils are the most fluid and are termed naphtha; the heaviest verging into asphalt (asphaltum). The oils of south- ern California, as a rule, are less stable than those of other localities, changing quickly on exposure to naphtha and asphalt. This fact limits its value as compared with the more stable oils, which yield a greater percentage of illuminating oil.
Chemieally, petroleum is composed of hydrogen and carbon. Some oil contains as much as one per cent. of nitrogen, and sulphur is also found in eer- tain oils. The chemistry of their constitution has been mueh studied, but presents great difficulties, so that it may be said to be little understood.
Productive oil wells vary greatly in depth; large supplies are sometimes afforded at sixty or seventy feet, and in others at over 1,000 feet. Most of the oil is from depths greater than 200 feet. The quan- tity produced by a single well has been known to rise as high as 4,000 barrels per day, as with the eele- brated " Burning Well," of Oil Creek. But such wells are not likely to remain produetive for a great length of time. The great well just mentioned took fire from an accident and burned for months, pre- senting a scene of appalling grandeur and sublimity.
Unrefined petroleum is used for fuel, for gas man- ufacture, and as a lubrieator for heavy bearings, for which purpose it has great value.
The yield of the Pennsylvania wells in 1860 was 500,000 barrels, rising to 4,200,000 in 1869, and to 9,884.000 in 1873. Latterly it has somewhat de- creased. The average daily produet for fourteen years was 10,800 barrels, the total product being 55,461,000 barrels.
In the refining of petroleum, at least ten eommer- cial products are obtained. These are, rhigolene, gasolene, C naphtha, B naphtha, A naphtha, kero- sene, mineral sperm oil, neutral lubricating oil, par- affine lubricating oil, paraffine wax, and a fixed resid-
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MISCELLANEOUS MATTERS.
uum. The lightest of the series is the first named which has to be condensed by applying ice. It is the lightest of all known fluids, its specific gravity being only 0.62. Its only use is as an amesthetic Gasolene is the subst: nee used in automatic gas ma- chines. A, B, and C naphtha are used for mixing paints, etc .; but their uses are so limited that they have, as yet, little commercial value. Kerosene is the common coal oil, which constitutes by far the greater value of the petroleum. The remaining sub- stances are coming rapidly into use as Inbricators, and for a variety of other purposes.
The apparatus for distilling (refining) petroleum consists of stills of various forms and sizes, with worms for condensing the vapors, and agitators in which the oils are treated with various chemicals. The stills are usually cylindrical, and are either of cast-iron, with wrought-iron bottoms. or wholly of boiler-iron, and hold from 1,000 to 80,000 gallons. The rhigolene and gasolene pass off with a slight ap- plication of heat, and are usually allowed to escape. The naphthas can be separated most exactly as their boiling points rise, the product obtained at a certain temperature being removed. when other products be- gin to come over. The operation is governed so as to produce the greatest quantity of illuminating oils, which is the chief object sought. The process can be carried on until nothing is left but coke; but it is not usually carried so far, as that would be too diffi- cult to remove from the still.
When all these products are saved, the proportions of each bear this relation: Naphtha (all grades), 34; kerosene, 125; mineral sperm, 25; neutral lubricating oil, 60; paraffine wax, 6 parts in 250 of distilled pro- ducts. When, on the contrary, only kerosene, naph- tha and lubricating oil are desired, 77 per cent. of the total amount saved is kerosene, and 14 per cent. naphtha.
The vast quantity of naphtha produced is almost a total loss, as no uses of importance have yet been provided for it. From this substance arise all the nu- merous accidents resulting from the explosion of coal oil lamps. It gives off its vapor at low temperature, and thus the space above the oil in the can or lamp becomes filled with a mixture of air and naphtha va- por, of a terribly explosive character, which, on the application of fire, or the accidental elevation of tem- perature above a point at which they combine, a serious explosion results. A small proportion of naphtha-five per cent. or less-will render kerosene dangerous. This explosive property of the vapor is inherent in the nature of the naphtha itself, and no human art can change it; yet manufacturers, for pur- poses of gain, sell kerosene that is contaminated with that liquid, and the result is a series of accidents fatal to helpless women and children. The "fire test " of kerosene is the discovery of the temperature at which it gives off an inflammable vapor. Naphtha does this at little above ordinary temperatures, while safe oil will not under less than 150 degrees. To discover
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