The book of Ruth Sheldon Knowles about the epic of American oil exploration considers oil men as “The Greatest Gamblers” – hence the title of the book. It is true that oil exploration is the greatest undertaking ever embarked on the soil of America* shaping the economics and the politics of the world like no other resources.
Ruth Sheldon’s book, The Greatest Gamblers, is more than the story of the discovery of oil and gas. It is about the challenges of finding oil and the fortitude needed to overcome these challenges. The book acknowledges the 300,000 dry holes drilled until the date of its publication, 1959. Imagine how unstoppable the industry of oil has become through the years, and all because of the courageous people who choose to gamble against all odds.
The book also eloquently talks about the emergence of harvesting of oil in 1859 in Pennsylvania with the help of the great and unfortunate Colonel Edwin Drake who was said to have shook the boughs for others to gather the fruit. Who said life is fair? No pun intended.
For geologists who want to get the glimpse of the beginning of oil and gas exploration, The Greatest Gamblers, talks about how the science of geology slowly lurked into the oil and gas business through field mapping, which was mostly done to identify the trends of sedimentary beds since it was known that anticline structures are lucrative traps of oil and gas. Of course, back then stratigraphic traps had not evolved into a practical science.
This book is also of interest for geophysicists as it talks about DeGolyer who was obsessed in using geophysical methods and improve them, particularly gravity method and reflection seismology. Wallace Pratt who is famous for saying “Where oil is first found is in the mind of men”, commented “The characteristic which most distinguished DeGoyler was intelligence – vivid, inquisitive, practical.” Undoubtedly, DeGoyler’s vision of prospecting oil and gas by all practical means moved applied geophysics to its present stature. More moving stories about DeGoyler and his achievements are described in the book in detail.
The book is also rich with stories of big discoveries, the oil and gas business models adapted intentionally and unintentionally and the cutthroat competition between the most successful oil men. I rather found the friction between Harry Sinclair and Rockefeller interesting. You can get the brief history of these companies at https://ektinteractive.com/history-of-oil/
Incidentally, do you know around 1880 the governor of Texas O. M. Roberts had appointed a committee to investigate the possible resources of oil, minerals, and artisan water in Texas? Well, there was such a committee that surveyed the state of Texas for six months. Can you guess what the report the committee had submitted said? You can learn more about the report and the interesting response of O. M. Roberts in the book. I am sure it would be one of those things that will be engraved in your mind.
Go ahead and read this interesting book; you can get the book here from Amazon.
*Oil was first discovered in China in 600 BC.
© Authored by Luel Emishaw, Burst of Insights
The Greatest Gamblers, Ruth Sheldon Knowles
