NATURE 



481 



THURSDAY, MARCH 21, i{ 



BAKU PETROLEUM. 

 The Region of the Eternal Fire. By Charles Marvin. 

 (London : Allen and Co., 1888.) 



THIS book is not, as its title might imply, an eschato- 

 logical treatise, nor is it a work of fiction after the 

 manner of Mr. Rider Haggard. It is simply a plain, 

 straightforward narrative of a journey to the petroleum 

 region of the Caspian, undertaken with a view of investi- 

 gating what Mr. Marvin terms " the kerosene factor of the 

 Central Asian problem." It has, however, this connection 

 with eschatology, that the region of which it treats is, 

 or was, holy ground. The peninsula of Apsheron, on 

 which Baku stands, has been famous from time im- 

 memorial, and even before the time of Cyrus thousands 

 of the followers of Zoroaster had worshipped on its sacred 

 soil. With the conquest of Persia, first by Heraclius, 

 and twelve years later by the Arabs, the power of the 

 Magi of the Zoroastrian sect was shattered ; and the 

 worship of the Eternal Fire in the Surakhani temple for 

 ever passed away, and in its place are now the symbols 

 of a new cult in the shape of greasy derricks and dingy 

 kerosene distilleries. 



The story of Baku and its Oil King, Ludwig Nobel, 

 reads like a tale of the " Arabian Nights." Ten years ago 

 the place was a sleepy Persian town : it is now a thriving 

 city, owning more shipping than Cronstadt or Odessa, 

 and the centre of a vast and rapidly increasing trade. 

 But even in the thirteenth century the " sacred element" 

 was so far robbed of its sanctity that the crude petroleum 

 was extensively exported into various parts of Asia. In 

 " The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian," edited by 

 Colonel Yule, we read that— 



" On the confines towards Georgine there is a fountain 

 from which oil springs in great abundance, inasmuch as a 

 hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. 

 This oil is not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, 

 and is also used 10 anoint camels that have the mange. 

 People come from vast distances to fetch it, for in all 

 countries round there is no other oil." 



Jonas Hanway, to whom Englishmen must be for ever 

 grateful for the introduction of the umbrella to this country, 

 visited Baku about the middle of the eighteenth century in 

 the interest of one of the powerful trading companies of the 

 time; and in 1754 he published a very complete account 

 of the district and of the uses to which its naphtha or 

 petroleum was put. The oil was then, as now, mainly 

 employed for light and fuel, but we are also told that — 



"The Russians drink it both as a cordial and 

 medicine ; but it does not intoxicate. If taken in- 

 ternally, it is said to be good for the stone as also for 

 disorders of the breast. . . . Externally applied it is of 

 great use in scorbutic pains, gouts, cramps, &c., but it 

 must be put to the part affected only ; it penetrates in- 

 stantaneously into the blood, and is apt for a short time 

 to create pain. It has also the property of spirits of wine 

 to take out greasy spots in silks or woollens, but the 

 remedy is worse than the disease, for it leaves an abomin- 

 able odour. They say it is carried into India as a great 

 rarity, and being prepared as a japan is the most beautiful 

 and lasting of any that has yet been found." 



Vol. XXXIX.— No. 1012. 



Since that time Baku and its wonders have been fre- 

 quently described, and the importance of the place with 

 respect to the Central Asian question has been repeatedly 

 pointed out by such travellers as Marsh, Valentine Baker 

 O'Donovan, and Arnold. Up to 1872 the extraction of 

 the oil was a monopoly, but in the following year it was 

 thrown open to the world, and hundreds of wells have 

 since been sunk, mainly by the energy of Swedes and 

 Russians. Geologically speaking, practically nothing is 

 known about this extraordinary district, and even the 

 engineers who bore for the oil and work the wells are 

 ignorant of the conditions which affect the supply of 

 petroleum. At the present time there must be at least 

 five hundred wells and fountains situated close together 

 on less than a thousand acres of ground, but the sources 

 seem to be absolutely independent of each other. The 

 supply is simply (to use Dominie Sampson's word) 

 " prodigious " ; and every year, as the borings get deeper, 

 the fountains become more prolific. These borings are 

 nothing like so deep as in America : not a single Baku 

 well has yet approached a depth of 1000 feet. In 1883 

 two flowing wells each sent out nearly 30,000,000 gallons 

 in less than a month from a depth of 700 feet. In 

 America there are said to be 25,000 drilled petroleum 

 wells, but a single Baku well has thrown up as much oil 

 in a day as nearly the whole of the 25,000 in America 

 put together. Mr. Marvin thus describes one of these 

 "spouting" wells: — 



"' In Pennsylvania that fountain would have made its 

 owner's fortune ; there's ;^5ooo worth of oil flowing out 

 of the well every day. [The actual value was at least 

 £ 1 1,200 a day.] Here it has made the owner a bankrupt.' 

 These words were addressed to me by an American 

 petroleum engineer, as I stood alongside a well that had 

 burst the previous morning, and out of which the oil was 

 flying twice the height of the Great Geyser in Iceland, 

 with a roar that could be heard several miles round. The 

 fountain was a splendid spectacle— it was the largest 

 ever known at Baku. . . . The derrick itself was 70 feet 

 high, and the oil and sand, after bursting through the 

 roof and sides, flowed fully three times higher, forming a 

 greyish-black fountain, the column clearly defined on the 

 southern side, but merging into a cloud of spray 30 yards 

 broad on the other. . . . The diameter of the tube up 

 which the oil was rushing was 10 inches. On issuing from 

 this the fountain formed a clearly-defined stem, about 

 18 inches thick, and shot up to the top of the derrick, 

 where, in striking against the beam, which was already 

 worn half through by the friction, it got broadened out a 

 little. Thence, continuing its course more than 200 feet 

 high, it curled over and fell in a dense cloud to the ground 

 on the north side, forming a sand-bank [from the amount 

 of admixed sandj, over which the olive-coloured oil ran 

 in innumerable channels towards the lakes of petroleum 

 that had been formed on the surrounding estates. . . . 

 Standing on the top of the sand-shoal, we could sec where 

 the oil, after flowing through a score of channels from the 

 ooze, formed in the distance, on lower ground, a whole 

 series of oil lakes, some broad enough and deep enough 

 to row a boat in. Beyond this, the oil could be seen 

 flowing away in a broad channel towards the sea." 



Flowing wells yielding from 40,000 to 160,000 gallons 

 of oil daily are common in Baku, and the ordinary 

 yield obtained by pumping is from 10,000 to 25,000 

 gallons daily; and many of these pumping wells have been 

 worked for years without any diminution in the supply. 

 A well belonging to Gospodin Kokereff had up to the 



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