MR. GALLENGA ON BAKU.

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"What is said of the capabilities of the country in petroleum seems almost to exceed all credibility. Petroleum, it is asserted, in enormous subterranean lakes and reservoirs, underlies the Caucasian region from sea to sea. It is largely found beneath the steppes, both north and south of the mountain chain. At Baku, and the peninsula of Apsheron, at the end of the chain on the Caspian, naphtha has its main sources. The princess with whom I parted at Petrovsk, was not indulging her poetic fancy when she told me that 'Naphtha bursts forth in copious springs, sending up tall liquid columns not unlike the geysers in Iceland.' Up to this time the difficulty of conveying the material has stood in the way of the full development of this marvellous source of wealth." Referring to the scheme to convey the oil through a pipe from Baku to Batoum, he continues :-"But, by whatever means the liquid may be conveyed from Baku to the various seaports and railway stations of the world, it seems likely to effect little less than an economic revolution. There is scarcely any use, domestic or social, that naphtha cannot be put to. Could the liquid be made to travel so cheaply as to undersell English and other coal in countries like Italy, Spain, and other Mediterranean regions, where coal sells at three guineas a ton, it would be hardly possible to reckon what enormous wealth would accrue to the people of the Caucasus.'

It is particularly worthy of notice that none of the travellers who have visited Baku since the time of Peter the Great have expressed any doubts as to the durability of the petroleum supply. So far as I am aware, neither in Russia nor out of it has any person familiar with the region questioned either the unlimited character of the

* "A Summer Tour in Russia," London: Chapman & Hall, 1883. Pages 318-320.

supply or its excellence. The geographers are at one with travellers on this point. Reclus, the foremost geographer of the time, calls Baku a "great natural workshop. The flames from the petroleum gases of the peninsula at times burst forth spontaneously, and during boisterous nights the hillsides are swept by sheets of phosphorescent light. Even in the middle of the sea the naphtha streams dribble up, clothing the ripples far and near with a thin iridescent coating. The legend of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven, may in the popular fancy be possibly associated with the flaming hills and waters of the region. To the internal pressure of the gases is due the rising of the naphtha, which is forced upwards through the sands and shingly layers below the superficial tertiary strata. . . . . . So far, the 700 naphtha wells sunk in the neigbourhood of Baku show no sign of exhaustion. But immense loss is caused by the ignorance of those engaged in the trade. Thus a well at Balakhani, yielding 4,800 tons of naphtha daily, ran waste for four weeks before a reservoir could be prepared to receive the oil."*

In Stanford's "Compendium of Geography," the volume of which on Asia was compiled by the eminent geographer Professor A. H. Keane, and edited by Sir Richard Temple, the opinion is expressed that, "the inexhaustible naphtha springs promise to prove a future source of permanent wealth to the country" (page 362). "Baku is the centre of the most productive naphtha district in Asia" (page 381).

John Geddie, another geographer, writest:-" The whole peninsula is saturated with naphtha, and the oil

"The Earth and its Inhabitants." London: J. S. Virtue & Co., 1883. Vol. vi. page 108.

"The Russian Empire: Historical and Descriptive." By John Geddie, F. R. G.S. London Nelson & Sons, 1882. Page 378.

EMINENT GEOGRAPHERS ON BAKU.

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which exudes freely from the soil at various spots forms the chief riches of Baku. One of these naphtha wells has sometimes been known to catch fire by accident and to continue to burn for years, throwing up its pillar of flame to mark the furthest outpost of the Caucasus."

Two more opinions may be cited to clench the case. "The potential productiveness of the Baku oil region is incomparably superior to that of Pennsylvania," said Professor Mendelaieff, the celebrated Russian scientist, after a visit to Baku in 1882. "Comparing the results. achieved in the two countries on one side, and the average depth and total number of wells on the other, it may be justly stated that the natural petroleum wells of Baku, as far as our knowledge goes, have no parallel in the world." Such was the opinion expressed by the British Vice-Consul at Batoum, Mr. Peacock, in a consular trade report published the same year.

I have been at pains to quote a large number of English authorities, even at the risk of being called a compiler, because commercial men are invariably so incredulous and suspicious in their attitude towards new ideas, that my assertions unsupported might have failed to have carried weight. In this chapter I have given almost all that has been published in English works on Baku petroleum. In the succeeding ones the matter will be original and derived from innumerable Russian sources. But even before proceeding to examine this mass of modern Russian data, the conviction I should have taken root in the reader's mind that the oil deposits of Baku are of a very extraordinary and wonderful character.

CHAPTER XII.

THE PETROLEUM DISTRICTS OF RUSSIA.

Official Estimate of the Area of the Petroleum Region of Russia-Localities where the Oil Abounds-The Crimean Deposits-The Supply in the Taman Peninsula -Operations at Novorossisk, in the Ter and Tiflis Districts, and near PetrovskThe Caspian Deposits-Setting the Sea on Fire -The Transcaspian Oil FieldsEnough to Supply the whole Russian Empire -A Modest Annexation-Description of the Baku Oil Region-The Surakhani and Balakbani Plateaux-Quantity of Petroleum Extracted up to now-Geological Characteristics of the Caspian Petroleum Region-Erroneous Deductions of Scientific Men--Ludwig Nobel's Theory of the Petroleum Deposits-Instances of Variations in the Supply of Oil from Contiguous Wells-The Vastness of the Baku Supply beyond the Reach of Controversy-Its Inexhaustibility-Relative Positions of the Baku and Pennsylvanian Supplies from Ports Accessible to European Shipping.

THE Compiler of Spon's "Encyclopædia of the Industrial Arts," an authoritative work of reference, speaks of the Russian official estimate of 14,000 square miles composing the area of the petroleum territory of the Russian Empire, as "obviously exaggerated." I do not see what grounds exist for such a sweeping statement. Petroleum abounds in the Vistula province, in the Governments of Samara and Saratoff on the Volga, in the Petchora region of the distant North, and in the territory of Ferghana, on the confines of Afghanistan. But, excluding all these, and restricting ourselves entirely to the Caucasus and Caspian, we have there oil strata running direct from the Crimea, across the Caucasus, and under the Caspian, to the Balkan Hills beyond-a distance of 1,500 miles, which, with a hypothetical breadth of ten miles, would alone give more than the area referred to.