HISTORICAL SUMMARY. g 



"At two p.m. I set off from my boat, accompanied by the mewthaghee or 

 zemindar of the district and several of the merchant proprietors, to view the wells. 

 Our road led to E.N.k. through dry beds of loose sand in the water-courses, 

 and over rugged arid downs and hillocks of the same soil as described above, 

 the growth on them consisting of scattered plants of Euphorbium, the Cassia tree 

 which yields the Terra Japonica, commonly called cutch or cutk, and used 

 throughout India as a component part of a beer a of paun, also a very durable 

 timber for lining the oil wells, and, lastly, the hardy bair or wild plumb common 

 in Hindustan. 



" The sky was cloudless, so that the sun shone on us with undiminished 

 force, and being also unwell, I walked slowly, and as we were an hour walking 

 to the wells, I therefore conclude they are about three miles distant from the river ; 

 those we saw are scattered irregularly about the downs, at no great distance from 

 each other, some perhaps not more than 30 or 40 yards. At this particular place 

 we were informed there are 180 wells, four or five miles to the N.E. 340 

 more. 



"In making a well the hill is cut down so as to form a square table of fourteen 

 or twenty feet for the crown of the well, and from this table a road is formed, by 

 scraping away an inclined plain for the drawers to descend in raising the excavated 

 earth from the well, and subsequently the oil. The shaft is sunk in a square form, 

 and lined, as the miner proceeds, with squares of Cassia wood staves. These staves 

 are about six feet long, six inches broad, and two thick ; are rudely jointed and 

 pinned at right angles to each other, forming a square frame about four and a 

 half feet in clear for the uppermost ones, but more contracted below. When the 

 miner has pierced six or more feet of the shaft, a series of these square frames are 

 piled on each other, and regularly added to at top, the whole gradually sinking, as 

 he deepens the shaft, and securing him against the falling in of the sides. 



"The soil or strata to be pierced is nearly such as I have described • the cliffs 

 to be on the margin of the river, that is, first, a light sandy loam intermixed with 

 fragments of quartz, silex, etc. ; second, a friable sand stone, easily wrought, with 

 thin horizontal strata of concrete or martial ore, talc, and indurated argill (the 

 latter has this singularity, it is denticulated, its lamina being perpendicular to the 

 horizontal lamina of the argill on which it is seated) at from ten to fifteen feet from 

 the surface, and from each other, as there are several of these veins in the great body 

 of free stone. Thirdly, at seventy cubits, more or less, from the surface, and imme- 

 diately below the free stone, a pale blue argillaceous earth (shistous) impregnated 

 with the petroleum and smelling strongly of it. This they say is very difficult to 

 work, and grows harder as they get deeper, ending in schist and slate, such as found 

 covering veins of coal in Europe, etc. Below this schist at the depth of about 130 

 cubits is coal. I procured some, intermixed with sulphur and pyrites which had 

 been taken from a well deepened a few days before my arrival, but deemed 

 amongst them a rarity, the oil in general flowing at a smaller depth. They were 

 piercing a new well when I was there, had got to the depth of eighty cubits, and 

 expected oil at ten or twenty cubits more. 



" The machinery used in drawing up the rubbish, and afterwards the oil from 



( 55 ) 



