Science Set. 2/16/54 Inscribed ΤΟ PROFESSOR A. H. KEANE, AS A TOKEN OF APPRECIATION OF HIS EMINENT SERVICES TO SCIENCE, AND THE GENEROUS, PATRIOTIC TONE THAT HAS ALWAYS CHARACTERIZED HIS WRITINGS, WHENEVER THEY HAVE TOUCHED UPON THAT GREAT EMPIRE, WHOSE SECURITY IS NOW BEING MENACED BY RUSSIA'S PROGRESS IN THE "REGION OF THE ETERNAL FIRE." b PREFACE. WHEN I proceeded to the Caucasus a few weeks after my return from attending the coronation of the Emperor Alexander III. at Moscow last year, I had no intention whatever of writing a book of travels. However, the interest which some letters about the Oil Fountains at Baku, appearing in the columns of the Morning Post, excited in various quarters, caused me to investigate more fully the Petroleum industry, and the result is now before the reader. If he be connected with the Petroleum trade, the data may be of value to him; if, on the other hand, he desires to know what Russia is doing in the Caspian, he may share with me the deep interest I feel in the Kerosine factor of the Central Asian problem. The preparation of the work has involved an amount of labour I would not again readily undergo. A number of excellent publications have been issued in Russia on Baku, but there is not one giving in a clear condensed form the history of the Petroleum industry up to the present time; and it is during the last few years that the greatest changes have been made. Besides, therefore, extracting the pith of the literature dealing with the subject, I have been compelled to go through files of the Baku and Tiflis newspapers since 1879, and "boil down" many hundred newspaper cuttings, reports, lectures, and official statistics that had accumulated on my hands in the interval; to say nothing of the contents of the note-book I took to Baku. Among the works I have consulted I would particularly call attention to those of Gospodin Gulishambaroff, undoubtedly the most prolific and impartial writer in Russia on the Petroleum industry. These comprise "The present condition of the Baku Petroleum Industry, with a plan of the Balakhani Plateau," "The present condition of the Baku refining industry, with a plan of the Black Town of Baku," both published in 1882; "The Bibliography of the Petroleum Industry," and "The heating of steamers and locomotives with Petroleum," published in 1883; besides a number of pamphlets : "Petroleum Fountains" (1879), "The Petroleum springs of Bradford" (1882), “The Ozokerit Industry in Galicia " (1882), and "The map of the Apsheron Peninsula," &c. Less valuable, because mainly of a polemical or theoretical character, are Sokolovsky's "Geological Investigation of Petroleum in the Caucasus (1883), Markovnikoff and Ogloblin's 'Researches into Caucasus Petroleum" (1883), Professor Mendelaieff's "Petroleum Industry in the North American State of Pennsylvania and in the Caucasus" (1877), and Professor Letni's "Refining of Petroleum (1875). The lectures of Ludwig Nobel, Gospodin Poletika, and Professor Lisenko, may be mentioned among those of the class which have yielded the richest amount of data. I should add, that some of the matter in the book appeared in the Newcastle Daily Chronicle early this year; nearly the whole of it has been rewritten, however, and the petroleum part brought down to date. In making these acknowledgments, I cannot refrain from appealing in turn to those who utilize this book for purposes of reference to condescend to mention the source. When I first took up the Central Asian Question, there was a complete dearth of data on the developing Caspian phase of it. The importance of that phase, further, was generally ignored. .To render my opinions the more forcible, I weighted them heavily with original Russian facts. The result has been that since the fall of Geok Tepé and the annexation of Merv, many newspaper-writers and authors have displayed their considerate appreciation by appropriating both opinions and facts, without the slightest acknowledgment, and have passed them off as their own. Two flagrant instances, in particular, rankle in my memory. In September, 1883, the Edinburgh Review published an article on "Russian Railways in Asia," containing several pages of matter taken almost en bloc from my 'Russians at Merv and Herat," without the slightest indication of the source; and on the 25th January this year, Mr. Robert Cust delivered a lecture at the "Roval United Service Institution " on the Russians on the Caspian and Black Seas," embodying a large amount of information from the same source, as well as from my pamphlet "The Russian Railway to India," in which he left it to his audience to infer that the data about the railway had been collected by him during his journey to Baku, instead of from my writings. Mr. Cust arrived at Baku on a dark autumn night last year, and left early the next morning direct for Astrakhan. Such a flitting was hardly favourable to deep research, especially as he does not appear to have understood Russian. There is yet another instance, which I am loath to dwell upon, because of the wide esteem deservedly enjoyed by the infringer of my rights. On the 16th of May this year, General Sir Edward Hamley delivered an admirable lecture at the Royal United Service In |