TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 181 



Soc. Journ. Aug. 1864), saj'S, " It may he useful to know that rock-oil, petroleum, 

 Biirbadocs tar, naphtlia; are all varieties of the same material, and that bitumen 

 is the pitch-like residue wlucli remains after the refined oil is distilled from the 

 crude, or has naturally dried away." These are the substances of which collec- 

 tively the geographical positions are to be noticed. 



The notices in old writers of the well-known sources of bitumen on the Euphrates 

 and in Judaja are numerous, and these are the most frequent subjects of reference 

 to these products in later times, till the remarkable naphtha-springs at Bakii on 

 the Caspian, and the striking appearance which they present, came to be more 

 generally known. The soft bitumen in the Euphrates valley is that of which we 

 have the earliest mention *. The word translated " slime " in the English version 

 of Gen. xi. 3, is cicripaXTos in the LXX. and bitumen in the Vulgate, and this is 

 wliat is meant. Of the asphalt of the Dead Sea, its quantity, and the magnitude 

 of the masses frequently found, there are many accounts in the writings of ancient 

 and modern travellers t. 



The great abundance of the petroleum at Bakii on the Caspian, and the remark- 

 able sight presented by the Haming streams of oil and discharges of gas, have been 

 the subject of many descriptions. One of the chief things of note at Bakii is this 

 emission of inflammable gas or naphtha-vapour, which occurs also in many other 

 parts of the world, with or without the immediate accompaniment of oil-springs. 



The fire-temple at Bakii has a special interest in connexion with India, not only 

 from its general similarit}' to that of Jwala-Miikhi near Kangra in the Punjab, 

 but also from the circumstance that the Baku temple has, for a long time and 

 down to the present day, been, like the other, a place of Hindoo pilgrimage, and 

 maintains a small fraternity of resident Brahmans. The great conflagrations of oil 

 on the surface of the gi'ound have not been constant, and many travellers do not 

 mention them ; but they could not fail to have been mentioned by any who had 

 seen them J. 



Marco Polo describes the great abundance of the discharges of oil at Baku, and 

 says that people came from vast distances to fetch it§. Bakii is described by 

 Kaempfer, who was there in January 1684 ||. Just a hundred years later it was 

 visited by Mr. Forster on his journey from India to England. He has given a 

 detailed and interesting account of the place, and of the Hindoo mendicants and 

 merchants who resided there. He mentions that tlie Hindoo traders there were 

 chiefly from Mooltan, and that they usually embarked at Tatta in Lower Sind, 

 proceeding by sea to Bussora, and thence accompanying the caravans passing into 

 Persia. I made endeavour to ascertain at Mooltan whether there is at the present 

 day any direct intercourse between the Hindoos of that place and Bakii, but could 

 not learn that it is kept up. But it is very possible that enterprising Iliudoos 

 from Mooltan who do not return there, and whose movements are not known to 

 tlieir friends, may settle down at Bakii as they do elsewhere. A Punjabee Hindoo 

 died a few years ago at Moscow, regarding whose property in Russia and relations 

 in the Punjab there was some correspondence between the Russian Government 

 and our own in India and in Eugland. Among the Hindoos at the Bakii temple 

 Forster ^ found an old man, a native of Delhi, who had visited all the celebrated 

 temples of northern and southern India, and whom he afterwards met at Astracan. 

 Morier, in 1812, met in Persia a Hindoo entirely alone, returning to Benares from 

 a pilgrimage to Bakii **. 



About midway between Kaempfer's time and Forster's, came Jonas Han way, who 

 gives a description of Bakii, the fire-temple, and the Hindoos, and the great quan- 



* Herod, i. 170 ; Thilostr. ApoU. Tyan. i. 17 ; D'Herbelot, Biblioth. Or. s. v. Hit. 



t Strab. vi. 763 ; Plin. N. H. vii. 13 ; Joseph. B. J. iv. 8. 4 ; Tacitus, Hist. v. G ; Maun- 

 deville, Eocbon, &c. 



\ "... Bddkil and (hose fountains of blue flame 



That burn into the Caspian."— Lalla Eooku: The Veiled Prophet. 



§ Book I. ch. iii. (vol. i. p. 46, of Col. Yule's edition, 1871). See also note in Mars- 

 den's edition. 



II Amoenit. Exot. p. 274, &c. ; Lives of Celebrated Travellers (Colbiu-n's Nat. Libr.), 

 i. 203. 



Tl P. 2G2, note. ** Second Journey, p. 243. 



