America 1881: Legend of the West

Chapter 173 Drilling out a Future

Vaughn, as always, rode at the front of the group.

He was in a great mood.

The geologist was already under his control, and he had already made arrangements for his followers in the fortress.

As soon as oil is found, hehe...

Thinking of this, he couldn't help but show a proud look on his face.

Roswell is still my Roswell. With these yellow-skinned scum, they just want to fight me. Are they worthy?
However, just after walking west out of the stone fortress, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

"Sir, which direction are we going?" asked the soldier behind Vaughn.

Vaughn couldn't answer. According to his usual experience, whichever way the wind blows, drill in that direction.

As a result, when shepherds near Roswell drove their sheep to new pastures, they occasionally found their sheep getting stuck in holes for no apparent reason or simply disappearing.

At first they thought it was a rock rat, until they heard the rumbling of machinery.

The same situation also occurs in different terrain locations such as nearby deserts and mountain foothills.

Five years of wasted time and countless useless holes in the ground around Roswell proved that his experience was wrong.

Holmes and Chen Jianqiu drove their horses and slowly walked in front of him.

When passing by Vaughan, Chen Jianqiu didn't forget to glance at him, clucked his tongue, and shook his head.

Vaughan was so angry that he almost cursed.

What are you, a little miner, saying to me? Okay, I think you can still keep playing for a few days.

Holmes dug out his precious notebook from his bag and pulled out a map.

This map looks a bit old, but it is still densely marked with many marks.

"This was hand-painted when I came here last time," Holmes said to Chen Jianqiu.

He studied the map carefully, then turned his horse's head and pointed in the direction of the small town of Roswell.

"Go that way."

This was the completely opposite direction to what they were traveling in. In other words, they needed to turn around, and the distance they just walked was completely in vain.

Turning around a carriage carrying a steam drill was quite troublesome, and the soldiers driving the carriage dared not speak out.

"Are you sure?" Vaughn asked Holmes, "It's a small town, and people have been coming and going for so many years. How can there be crude oil?"

"That's because you are blind." Holmes showed the arrogance of an intellectual as he drove his horse past Vaughan again.

"You can really delay things." Chen Jianqiu added.

Vaughn endured it.

The team turned around and headed towards the town.

Holmes did not lead the team into the town, but passed through the edge of the town.

Only then did Chen Jianqiu get a closer look at the specific situation of the town.

There really weren't many people left in the town. Except for those who live in the ranches outside town,

There were only a few people with Latino faces on the edge of the town, sitting in front of their houses and watching their team pass by.

The broken signs hanging on the closed rooms indicate that someone may have been here before.

After passing the town, they turned southeast.

Not far away, Chen Jianqiu saw the grassland Holmes mentioned.

Compared with the Chihuahuan Desert to the west, this place can be regarded as an oasis. However, the grass on the ground looks like it has been chewed. It seems that this place is often visited by herders.

Holmes had already dismounted. After comparing his map, he began to tap the stones along the way with a pick hammer, and then observed the traces of the stone's cross section.

After a while, they came to the edge of the pasture, near an irregular terrain that vaguely looked like a river.

With the help of Chen Jianqiu, Holmes spent more than half an hour here knocking on the door.

Vaughan and his soldiers stood there with their arms akimbo, watching the two men chiseling for half an hour.

After repeated confirmations, Holmes straightened up, pointed to the surrounding area, and said to Vaughn and his soldiers who looked confused:

"That's it! Get in here."

"Um, where exactly is it?" Vaughn still looked confused.

"Why are you so stupid?" Holmes cursed, "This area is fine, there is an oil spring below."

Upon hearing this, Vaughan quickly asked the soldiers behind him to unload the things on the carriage.

They had a lot to do, building the frame out of the wood and assembling the heavy real steam turbine to drive the drill.

However, these things were all done by a dozen soldiers, with Vaughn holding a pocket and watching intently.

Chen Jianqiu and Holmes walked aside.

Chen Jianqiu took out two cigars from his saddle bag, lit one, shook it twice, and handed it to Holmes.

Holmes put it in his mouth and took a sip, then put the cigar in his hand in front of his eyes and looked at it:
"Huh? Isn't this the box I bought in Lincoln County last time? Later I wondered where the box of cigars went." "It was broken into pieces by bullets, and I picked up a few of them." Chen Jianqiu lit one for himself as well, his face flushed but his heart not beating, and he didn't mention a word about using cigars to bribe the town police.

"Are you sure there is crude oil down here?" Chen Jianqiu took a puff of cigarette.

"Not sure, let's try to hit it." Holmes passed the smoke he inhaled in his mouth for a while, then spit it out from his mouth, "I have found this place before, and I can't hit this thing if I don't hit it. , never know if there is.”

"Does it have to be drilled very deep? Will it spurt out?" Chen Jianqiu searched for memories about the oil field before traveling. These were all things he saw on TV or the Internet.

His impression of oil drilling is: the drilling rig drills down, and black liquid spurts out.

"No, based on my experience, if you can find it, it's all shallow oil on the surface. It's a little deeper than the oil exposed on the ground in Pennsylvania. It doesn't have as much pressure and won't spurt out." Holm Si smoked a cigar and shook his head, spreading knowledge about oil in this era to Chen Jianqiu.

Vaughn didn't notice the two men smoking cigars on one side. His attention was entirely on the busy soldiers.

As their commander said, these soldiers were very skilled at their business.

By evening they had set up their frames and camp, and assembled their steam engines and drills.

Two strong-looking soldiers were shoveling coal into the boiler. They were about to start the steam turbine and start drilling.

Holmes looked on. He knew nothing about machinery, while Chen Jianqiu, a geologist's assistant, was also pretending to record something.

"How deep?" The soldiers looked at Holmes.

However, the geologists have not yet answered this question, and Vaughan next to them has already told them the answer first.

"Drill until crude oil comes out!"

Holmes' previous words gave Vaughn full confidence. At this moment, he was full of enthusiasm. The five-year wait would finally bear fruit.

So the drilling rig started.

In this era, the energy conversion efficiency of steam engines was not high, and the drilling rigs they drove were even less efficient.

By midnight on the first day, they had gone about fifteen feet down.

Vaughan and Holmes were getting ready for bed.

But the soldiers on the drilling rig and the night shift could not rest. Firstly, there was no reason to stop the steam engine once it was started. Secondly, the enthusiastic Vaughan hoped that his soldiers could keep working until crude oil was drilled out.

Chen Jianqiu found a tent, crawled into it and slept in his clothes. However, the steam turbine outside made a huge noise, which was a disaster for Chen Jianqiu, who would wake up at the slightest noise.

Fortunately, he didn't need to rest for long.

The next morning, when he arrived at the well in high spirits, Vaughan and Holmes were already standing there.

Both of them had dark circles around their eyes, but they both looked quite excited.

The next day, forty feet (about twelve meters), nothing.

Early in the morning of the third day, Vaughan and Holmes were still standing at the edge of the drilling well early.

The dark circles under their eyes got deeper.

When the drill reached a depth of fifty feet, Holmes, who had begun to be a little distracted, suddenly ran towards the borehole like crazy.

"Water! Water!" He pointed around the drill hole. Everyone came over to take a look and saw liquid overflowing from around the drill rod.

Vaughn dipped his finger in some liquid and sniffed it. He looked at it again and cursed, "It's fucking water. What do we need water for? Keep drilling!"

But Chen Jianqiu's heart suddenly skipped a beat.

Holmes rushed to Chen Jianqiu and said excitedly: "I said there is an aquifer here. Thank God, New Mexico has too much groundwater resources. This is just the surface diving."

But for Vaughn, these obviously have little to do with him.

So the drilling rig continued to run.

In the afternoon, dark clouds began to roll in the sky for some reason, and it seemed that this dry place would, like Lincolnshire, experience one of the few rainfalls of the year.

When the drill reached about sixty feet (about eighteen meters), it suddenly stopped.

When Vaughn saw the machine stop, he immediately yelled, "What the hell are you doing? Why don't you keep drilling?"

The soldier operating the machine looked nervous and said to Vaughn with embarrassment: "Our drill bit seems to have fallen into a gap."

"Are you pigs? Huh? You've been doing this for so many years? How could something like this still happen?" Vaughn held his head in frustration.

Since the drill bit had fallen off, there was no way to continue. The soldier operating the drill had to pull up the drill rod.

"Let's take a break first." Holmes said to the soldiers, while Vaughn squatted in the corner alone, not knowing what he was thinking.

Chen Jianqiu lowered a jar from the drill hole.

The water he brought was put into the boiler, and he prepared to get some water to wash his face.

However, when he just poured the water in the jar into the basin, he was stunned.

There was a sticky, black liquid floating on the water in the basin.

oil!

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