158 BAKU. 



form of Hades. This impression is in no way lessened 

 by a visit to the boiler-house, where steam for working 

 the drills and pumps is generated. Here stand a row 

 of cylindrical boilers, very much the same as boilers any- 

 where else, but with this difference — there is no coal 

 and there are no ashes, and there is no dirt. At the 

 mouth of the furnace, where, in the case of an ordinary 

 boiler, coal is put in and ashes are raked out, are fixed 

 the mouth-pieces of two small pipes. By means of these 

 a spray of petroleum is driven into the furnace by a jet 

 of steam, and a roaring, all-devouring tongue of fire 

 races from one end of the chamber to the other. The 

 flame thus produced is possessed of a violent vitality, 

 and the roar and hiss is as of the sound of the rushing 

 of many waters. 



Mere prosy facts, however, are here as astonishing as 

 abstract impressions. I stood and watched the rich, 

 slimy, dark-green fluid, with its pink glittering froth, 

 being discharged by the great baler of one of the bor- 

 ings on the Bibi Eibat field, and became fascinated 

 when I learnt that I was watching an implement which 

 was alone raising upwards of 100 tons of oil a-day t 

 Later I learned something of " spouters," and the plod- 

 ding: baler Avith its hard-earned reward of 100 tons 

 seemed a poor thing in comparison. I was not fortu- 

 nate enough to see one myself, but I caught something 

 of the enthusiasm of those who had. A spouter is 

 gloriously indifferent to restraint, and often blows the 

 derrick to matchwood ; but then it throws up anything 

 from 7000 to 10,000 tons of marketable oil — say 

 roughly from £350,000 to £500,000 i— in the course of 

 twenty-four hours, and what is the cost of a mere 

 derrick as compared to this ? Some one who thought 



^ On the basis of 8'11 kopecks a pood, the average price of raw naphtha 

 at the wells in 1901. 



