Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 2.djvu/870

 EOBEBTS V. BCHREIBEB. 863 �Eaymond commenced drilling one, and stopped drilling in the spring of 1860. In the summer or fall of that year he attempted to explode in the weli a tia case fiUed with powder, but the fuse went ont, the case collapsed, and he never tried the eïperiment again. In May or June, 1860, Henry H. Dennis unsuccessfuUy exploded a torpedo in an oil well, and abandoned the experiment. �In 1860 John C. Ford exploded a torpedo in a well some 248 feet deep, employing a round or oblong tin can filled with powder. It had a nozzle with a screw thread on the end of it. To this he screwed a gas pipe of sufficient length, and dropped a heated iron down the pipe into the torpedo, thus causing the torpedo to explode. The experiment was a complete failure, and the well was abandoned. How Eord regarded it is ehown by the fact that he afterwards had Eob- erts' process applied to bis well. Another torpedo was fired in 1860, on the Stackpole farm, with like ill success, and the experiment was not repeated. George B. Walhee also made an unsuccessful experiment in 1860 at Tidioute. Other fruit- less experiments are proved to bave been made. The Eeed trials we fully considered in Roberts v. Dickey, and it is un- necessary to say more of them. We refer, however, to the report of the examinera in a case of interference, No. 3,859, dated July 10, 1869. �It may be noticed that most of these unsuccessful experi- ments were made in 1860 or 1861. Eoberts conceived the idea of bis process in 1862, and in 1864 he applied for his patent. Up to that time there is no proof that any torpedo had been exploded in an oil well with any aubstantially good results. Numerous experiments had been tried and aban- doned; but when the Eoberts process was tried it was im- mediately successful. The first trial increased the production of oil 60 barrels a day, and the process bas continued to be a success. DoubtlesB there bas been an occasional failure, but in comparison with complete success it bas been very rare. It is in proof that it bas increased production at least one- balf — in some wells from five to six barrels a day to one hun- ����