22 NOETLING : PETROLEUM IN BURMA. 



" Under this they cut through a yellow soil, and from this they state the 

 petroleum issues. Between the black and the yellow rocks there is commonly, 

 although not always, a greenish bed, oily, and strongly impregnated with petro- 

 leum ; and this, in all probability, is nothing but the ordinary shaly clay, charged 

 with oil. 



" The ' yellow soil ' I fancy to be clayey beds, from which, or on which, 

 sulphur has been segregated or thrown out, as an efflorescence. 



" The wells are put down vertically. They are square or rectangular in 

 section, and about four feet six inches on each side. 



" Over each well a cross beam, supported on staunchions at either side, is 

 placed, and on the centre of this is a small wooden drum or cylinder, over which 

 the rope used in hauling up the oil passes. 



" A common earthenware gurrah, or pot, is attached to the rope, and, being 

 lowered, is allowed partially to fill by sinking into the oil below, and is then drawn 

 up by a man or men, who walk with the rope down an inclined plane at the side 

 of the well. The oil thus raised is poured into another pot, or into a small basin 

 excavated close to the well mouth, and from this is packed into gurrahs for con- 

 veyance to the village for shipment. Each" cart conveys from 10 to 12 gurrahs, 

 each gurrah holding about 10 viss of oil, or, on the average, 100 viss (365 lbs.) on 

 each cart. The oil is raised only in the morning, and, the quantity which each 

 well is known by experience to give having been raised, the work then ceases, and 

 the oil is allowed to accumulate during twenty-four hours. On the following morn- 

 ing the process is repeated. The petroleum, when first extracted, has in mass a 

 peculiar yellowish green colour, is watery more than oily, and of the consistence of 

 ordinary cream. 



" From some of these wells 400 viss (1,416 lbs.) are extracted daily ; one 

 which we saw had, according to the statements of the natives, yielded this large 

 amount daily for some months, and from it this quantity had that morning been 

 taken. Others, again, only yielded 60 viss, or less ; while not unfrequently, after 

 large expenditure in sinking and reaching what they consider the proper soil of 

 the petroleum, the well will prove a failure and yield none. The wells 1 are 

 in two principal groups, as mentioned above, which are nearly two miles 

 apart. They have been sunk indifferently on the slopes of the deep ravines, 

 and from the level plateau on top. They do not occur in any particular line 

 or direction ; there is nothing to point to the occurrence of any fault or dis- 

 turbance, along the line of which the petroleum might issue, and the varying 

 depths of the wells themselves, according to their position (those on the top of 

 the plateau being, in all cases, deeper than those on the slope of the hillside, and 

 this, approximately, in the same ratio as the surface of the ground is higher in 

 one place than in the other), indicate a tolerable horizontality in the source of 

 supply. This is a question of considerable importance ; for if it be the case that 

 one bed or layer of peculiar mineral character is the source of the petroleum, the 



1 One of the wells on the top of the plateau has a depth of 180 cubits (royal cubits=22 

 inches) and they range from 140 to 180, or from 250 to 330 feet; while those on the slope of 

 the hill vary from 100 to 60 cubits, according to position, or from 180 to no feet, while the 

 bed of the stream or watercourse is from 120 to 130 feet below the level of the plateau. 



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