6 NOETLING : PETROLEUM IN BURMA. 



care can prevent the fracture of some in every journey. As we approached the 

 pits, which were more distant than we had imagined, the country became less un- 

 even, and the soil produced herbage, 8 it was nearly dark when we reached them, 

 and the labourers had retired from work. There seemed to be a great many pits 

 within a small compass : walking to the nearest, we found the aperture about 4 feet 

 square, and the sides, as far as we could see down, were lined with timber ; the 

 oil is drawn up in an iron pot, fastened to a rope passed over a wooden cylinder 

 which revolves on an axis supported by two upright posts. When the pot is 

 filled, two men take the rope by the end, and run down a declivity, which is cut in 

 the ground, to a distance equivalent to the depth of the well ; thus when they 

 reach the end of their track, the pot is raised to its proper elevation, the contents, 

 water and oil together, are then discharged into a cistern, and the water is after- 

 wards drawn off through a hole at the bottom. Our guide, an active intelligent 

 fellow, went to a neighbouring house and procured a well rope, by means of which 

 we were enabled to measure the depth, and ascertained it to be thirty-seven 

 fathoms, but of the quantity of oil at the bottom we could not judge : the owner 

 of the rope who followed our guide affirmed, that when a pit yielded as much as 

 came up to the waist of a man, it was deemed tolerably productive ; if it reached 

 to his neck, it was abundant ; but that which rose no higher than the knee, was 

 accounted indifferent. When a well is exhausted, they restore the spring by 

 cutting deeper into the rock, which is extremely hard in those places where the 

 oil is produced. Government farm out the ground that supplies this useful com- 

 modity ; and it is again let to adventurers who dig wells at their own hazard, 

 by which they sometimes gain, and often lose, as the labour and expense of 

 digging are considerable. The oil is sold on the spot for a mere trifle ; I think two 

 or three hundred pots for a tackal or half-a-crown. The principal charge is 

 incurred by transportation and purchase of vessels." 



In the 3rd part of the Manual of Geology of India, 1st edition, 

 page 151, it is stated that Symes gives the number of wells as 500 and 

 the annual yield as something like 56,000,000 viss (90,900 tons). I do 

 not know where the author of the Manual obtained this statement 

 from, as I cannot find any reference to it in my copy of Symes* 

 Embassy to Ava. 



Symes' description of the features of the country in all its brief- 

 ness affords such a true picture of the dry, barren land around 

 Yenangyoung that one might suppose the author had visited Yenang- 

 young in our times — not a hundred years ago. There are still the 

 same dusty roads worn by deep wheel tracks, strewn with pieces of 

 broken earthen pots and saturated with spilt oil, and there are still 

 the same creaking, shrieking carts coming from the oil-fields while 



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