122 NOETLING: PETROLEUM IN BURMA. 



the difficulties in getting beyond a certain depth prove unsurmount- 

 able to the native well digger, and the only way to extract the petro- 

 leum from the deeper strata would be the construction of drilled 

 wells. It must, however, not be entirely forgotten that even those 

 may prove futile, and that the third sand is already nearly exhausted 

 within the boundaries of the reserves. This can however be only 

 proved by an actual experiment. 



There are, I may state, some facts which in a measure tend to 

 support such a view, but into which it is needless to enter here. 



To sum up shortly I believe the prospects of the native reserves 

 are as follows :— 



1. It is very probable that within the next five years digging 

 operations will be most energetically carried out, and the number of 

 the productive wells will increase. 



2. The production is likely to increase still more, although to no 

 considerable extent, but in no distant future it will rapidly fall off, 

 partly because the pit wells have reached their greatest depth, partly 

 on account of exhaustion of the petroliferous sands. 



3. The production of the Berne tract which has shown marked 

 signs of decline as late as 1891 continues to fall off. 



4. The Twingon reserve has probably already passed the zenith 

 of its existence, and its production will probably fall off within a few 

 years. 



5. Although deep borings might delay the final end for some 

 time, by exploiting deeper strata, it remains to be seen whether they 

 will be successful or not. The chances are however more in favour 

 of failure. 



I claim that my views regarding the prosperity of the oil bearing 

 tract have been borne out by facts : In 1888 I wrote j 1 



u The Twingoung oil field is at present at the zenith of its produc- 

 tion, but still a small increase may be expected for the next few 



1 Report on the Oil fields of Twingoung and Beme, Rangoon, 1889, and Records 

 of the Geological Survey ot India, 1889, vol. XXII. 



( 168 ) 



