32 NOETLING : PETROLEUM IN BURMA. 



Chapter III.— THE OCCURRENCE OF PETROLEUM 

 NEAR MINBU. 



i. — Geographical position and physical Geography. 



The village of Minbu is situated at Lat. 2o°io', Long. 94°56' on 

 the right bank of the Irawadi about 423 miles above Rangoon, at 

 the northern end of a low hill range. The vast alluvial plain of the 

 Mon river extends to north of Minbu ; to the south and west of it is 

 a low hilly country, which comes right up to the bank of the river. 

 Petroleum has been found at different places in the neighbourhood of 

 Minbu, and there are indications at the southern slope of Leit-taung 

 that petroleum was formerly gathered in shallow pits. These are 

 now entirely abandoned and dried up. 



The next place where petroleum oozes out on the surface is 

 around the Nagabwet-taung or mud volcanoes, on the northern bank 

 of the Sabwet-choung, a small feeder of the Irawadi river. 



About five miles in a straight line, further the south, in a small 

 stream between the villages of Palangon and Nandawgon is a third 

 locality where there are some surface indications. 



But nowhere has an attempt been made to extract the oil from the 

 deeper beds, although the petroleum was gathered to a small extent 

 from the surface of natural springs. It is difficult to say why the 

 Burmans, who have followed up the surface indications at Yenang- 

 young and Yenangyat, have never attempted to exploit the petrolifer- 

 ous beds of Minbu. 



2.— Geological features. 



A. — The Pliocene or Irawadi series. Lithological and 

 palmontological characters. 

 This division consists chiefly of yellowish sandstones of various 

 degrees of hardness, with subordinate coarse conglomerates, which 

 are always more or less ferruginous ; globular or flat concretions 

 of hard, quartzitic sandstone are common. 

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