132 AN ACC0Ul5rTfeF THE PETROLEUM WELLS 



I ENDEAVOURED to guard againft exaggeration, as 

 well as to obviate the caution and referve which mer- 

 cantile men in all countries think it neceffary to ob- 

 lerve, when minutely queflioned on fubje6ts affecting 

 their interefls, and I have reafon to hope my informa- 

 tion is not very diftant from the truth. 



The property of thefc wells is in the owners of the 

 foil, natives of the country, and defcends to the heirs 

 general as a kind of entailed hereditament, with which 

 it is faid government never interferes, and which no 

 diftrefs will induce them to alienate. One family per- 

 haps will poiTefs four or five wells, I heard of none 

 .who had more, the generality have lefs, they are funk 

 by, and wrought for the proprietors ; the coil of fink- 

 ing a new well is 2000 tecals flowered filver of the 

 country, or 2300 ficca rupees 3 and the annual aver- 

 age net profit icoo tecals, or 1250 ficca rupees. 

 ■ The contract price with the miners for finking a 

 well is as follows : for the firft forty cubits they have 

 forty tecals, for the next forty cubits three hundred 

 tecals, and beyond thefe eighty cubits to the oil they 

 have from thirty to fifty tecals per cubit, according to 

 the depth (the Burmha cubit is mneteen inches Englijhy-, 

 taking the mean rate of forty tecals per cubit, and one 

 hundred cubits as the general depth at which they 

 come to oil, the remaining twenty cubits will coft 800 

 tecals, or the whole of the miner's wages for finking 

 the Ihaft 1140 tecals ; a well of a 100 cubits will re- 

 quire 950 cafiia ftaves, which at five tecalsperhundred 

 will calt 47! tecals. Portage and workmanfliip, in 

 fitting them, may amount to 100 tecals more 3 the 

 levelling the hill for the crown of the well, and making 

 the draw road, &c. according to the common rate of 

 labour in the country, will coft about 200 tecals j 

 ropes, 8cc. and provifions for the workmen, which are 

 fupplied by the proprietor when making a new well ; 

 expences of propitiatory facrifices, and perhaps a fig- 

 niorage fine to government for pcrmifTion to fink a new 

 well, confume the remaining 5 1 2 i tecals j in deepen- 



ing 



