As early as the first century BC, industrial workers in China's Sichuan Province were building derricks for wells, but they weren't drilling for oil. While most of the world got salt from ocean water or mines, Sichuan has salty aquifers underneath, and they built wells to bring this brine to the surface. They developed percussion drilling, which harnesses gravity power and patience, but will eventually reward you with salty water. And natural gas.
It took hundreds of years to perfect the technology, but by 1835, they had drilled a well more than a kilometer deep near the town of Zigong. They also developed a method to harness the natural gas released, piping it to factories and using it to power the boilers that extracted salt from the brine. Pictures of the tall derricks of Zigong inspired American George Bissell to drill for oil in the United States in the 19th century. Read about the ancient salt wells of Zigong at Amusing Planet.
(Image credit: Phreakster 1998)
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