Whose Idea Was It to Make a Casing

For the Well?

People say that the important idea, which makes today's drilling possible, was first used by Drake when he was sitting and thinking of it while gazing down at the shape of his stovepipe hat. He was worry­ing about water filling his well as it grew deeper and deeper, and suddenly thought that pipes the shape of his hat might be just the thing to line the hole.

But others say that he had heard about the Ruffner brothers who, long before, had solved a problem similar to his.

Back in 1806, when David and Joseph Ruffner were digging a salt well in West Virginia, water caved it in. They cut down a huge hollow sycamore tree and set the trunk upright in the hole. A digger climbed down inside the trunk with a big bucket, into which he began to shovel mud. This bucket was hoisted out of the tree and emptied as he filled it. As the hole deepened, the sycamore "pipe" sank slowly into it. Thus the well diggers could remove mud without danger of a cave-in until the hole reached the bedrock.

Then they dropped a long iron pipe with a drill bit screwed to it

Chapter One

into the hole. By means of a long spring pole, like an old-fashioned well sweep, they raised the drill bit and then let it drop. Thus they drove a hole into the rock.

10 By 1808 they had a forty-foot hole drilled and were getting brine,
but water nearer the surface seeped in and diluted it. To solve this
problem, they split a small tree trunk lengthwise, hollowed the centre
of each half, bound the halves together, and lowered this small pipe
into the hole. Its purpose was to act as a casing to prevent the sur­
face water from getting into the brine.

11 Without realizing it, the Ruffners had invented the whole proce­
dure of drilling, casing, and tubing used by cable-tool oil drillers today.