The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940 Page: 126

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Southwestern Historical Quarterly

lowing, the region not only witnessed the things usual to the devel-
opment of an oil field, and which have since been repeated in
principle in hundreds of other fields, but in that decade the oil
industry took on all the essentials, crude though they were, of the
oil business as it operates today-exploration, drilling, storage,
transportation, refining and marketing.
The background of drilling wells for salt brines is told effectively,
as is that of the developments leading up to the Silliman chemical
analyses of crude oil. The difficulties met by "Colonel" Drake, a
sort of Jack-of-all-trades, in drilling the first well are treated
adequately.
It may be worth noting that in this narrative of the first
decade of the oil industry no mention is made of Rockefeller who
entered the business after it had been made a going concern; that
Andrew Carnegie is mentioned as a stockholder in the Columbia
Oil Company; that John D. Archbold, the son-in-law of a hotel
keeper in Titusville, is mentioned as the leader in the establish-
ment of the Culver Literary Association; that William Barnsdall
with W. H. Abbott and James Parker built the first refinery in
Titusville in the fall of 1860; and that, not knowing how to
utilize the by-products, "they either dumped into Oil Creek or
burned all tar and naphtha."
ELMER H. JOHNSON.
The University of Texas.
Land of the Burnt Thigh. By Edith Eudora Kohl. (New York
and London: Funk & Wagnalls Co., 1938. Pp. x. 296.
Illustrations. $3.00.)
In trying to review this book ". .. I find myself, in the
vernacular of the range, plumb flabbergasted." It is difficult to
grasp its meaning to the fullest extent. The "land of the burnt
thigh" got its name when some Indian youths, overtaken by a
prairie fire, threw themselves on the ground, covered up in their
robes, and let the fire pass over them. They were all burned on
the right thigh. The Sioux spoke of these Indians as the people
of the burnt thigh, and a French trader named the country where
they lived the Brul4 (burned).
The American frontier has always had its appeal. Many have

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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 43, July 1939 - April, 1940, periodical, 1940; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101111/m1/134/ocr/: accessed March 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.

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