PETROL 285 



portant deposits of Rumania and the less known fields of Buko- 

 wina and Hungary. . . . The petroleum industry in this 

 country is of considerable antiquity. The earliest historical 

 records show that oil was collected in a primitive fashion and used 

 as a cart grease from very early times, and old timbered oil- 

 wells still existing in Galicia and Rumania indicate that this 

 practice prevailed to a considerable extent " (Redwood's 

 Petroleum, Vol. I). The older wells were dug out, but modern 

 methods of boring were introduced about 1881, and since then 

 the development has gone on steadily till in 1910 the total 

 production in Galicia approached two million tons. The 

 petroleum deposits of Rumania are continuous with those of 

 Galicia ; they are also supposed to be of about the same age as 

 the petroleum bearing beds of the Caucasus with which they are 

 said to be continuous (Redwood). The total Rumanian pro- 

 duction was estimated in 1910 at upwards of one million and a 

 quarter tons. 



The Figures 87, 88, and 89, facing pages 288 and 289, show 

 some of the modern wells in these regions. Figure 90, as well as 

 Figure 78, facing page 282, are views taken in the new oil-field in 

 the Uralsk Province of Southern Russia. It will be noticed that 

 throughout the eastern oil regions, whether in Central or Eastern 

 Europe, it is customary to enclose the derricks by boarding 

 them over. 



In consequence of the general association of the oil with gas 

 confined in the oil-bearing rock or sand under pressure it fre- 

 quently happens that when the rock is pierced the oil is forced 

 up the bore-hole with great violence, producing a fountain of oil. 



Many of these fountains which are very frequent in the Baku 

 district have been described by the late Charles Marvin in his 

 Region of the Eternal Fire, published in 1888, and we cannot do 

 better than quote his account of the impressive spectacle ex- 

 hibited by the famous Droojba fountain in 1883. He says, 

 p. 211, "The oil was flying twice the height of the great Geyser 

 in Iceland, with a roar that could be heard several miles round. 

 When the first outburst took place the oil had knocked off th& 

 roof and part of the sides of the derrick, but there was a beam 

 left at the top against which the oil broke with a roar in its 

 upward course, and which served in a measure to check its 

 velocity. The derrick itself was 70 feet high, and the oil and the 

 sand, after bursting through the roof and sides, flowed fully 



