14 NOETLING : PETROLEUM IN BURMA. 



so great that it would be quite impossible for the casing to sink by 

 its own weight. 



But, apart from small mistakes like this, Captain Cox's report is 

 as accurate as possible, and, if it was not for the erroneous statement 

 about the number of the wells and the rather mysterious statement 

 of two towns of Yenangyoung, a lower and a centre one, separated 

 a distance of ij hours of each other, the report would be a model 

 of correctness. 



It is impossible for me to find out what Captain Cox meant by 

 the lower and the centre town of Rainanghong, the latter one is evi- 

 dently the present Yenangyoung, but I cannot possibly make out what 

 is meant by the lower town : perhaps it was Nyaunghla. 



Captain Cox visited Berne, as he distinctly states that there is 

 another group of wells to the north-east of the one he visited. 

 As Twingon lies to the north-east of Berne oil-field, it is undoubtedly 

 that it is the latter one he saw, although he greatly overrates the 

 distance between both tracts. 



He also greatly overestimates the number of wells. There can- 

 not possibly have been 520 wells in 1797, for the reasons which I 

 have pointed out before, if we do not accept the highly improbable 

 theory that 200 wells have been so perfectly filled up again that no 

 trace of them can now be discovered. 



His description of the wells, their method of digging, and the 

 extraction of the oil, is perfectly correct, and could have been writ- 

 ten in our times. 



The statements about the proprietary rights in the wells are the 

 more interesting, as here for the first time the " families of heredi- 

 tary well owners " a e mentioned, which have in these days, as 

 twinzas and twinzayos, become of some importance. 



The statements about duty, wages, and price of the oil are highly 

 valuable, but the amount of the production must necessarily be 

 greatly overrated, as it is based on the assumption of 520 wells each 

 producing in the average 300 viss per day. 

 ( 60 ) 



