October i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
237 
BY SAMUEL P. BADTLEB, PH.D. * 
American petroleum, or, more exastly, Pennsyl- 
vania petroleum, has, 1 am aware, been taken as a 
subject for lectures before this institution on several 
occasions alroady, notably in recent years by Mr. 
Chas. A. Ashburner, of the Second Geological Sur- 
vey of Pennsylvania, and its geology and conditions 
ol production as well as its refining and varied 
utilizations have been ably described. 1 am not 
aware, however, that it has been discussed in com- 
parison with that equally wonderful and more recont 
production, Russian petroleum. It is my purpose 
then to describe briefly the conditions of occurrence 
of these two most important natural products, to 
note the chemical differences between the two 
"crudes," the differences of treatment inado neces- 
sary in consequence, the characters of the respective 
products, ami lastly the present and prospective com- 
mercial values of these two gilts of Nature. In 
speaking of the American field I shall speak, of 
course, essentially of the Pennsylvania production, 
for although we have Canadian oil, West Virginia 
oil, California Oil and, prospectively of still greater 
importance, Ohio oil, the great bulk of the crude 
uil which is refined for illuminating and lubricating 
purposes, oomefl from what is called the Pennsylvania 
field. * * * . 
None of these Pennsylvania and Now York oils con- 
tutn aMy appreciable amount of sulphur or other im- 
pewity which would require a modification of the 
general refining methods. The heavy oils of Franklin 
and Smith's Perry, fa., and some few other localities, 
are so valuable for the manufacture of lubricating oils 
that they a-e collected and worked separately. The 
Pennsylvania crude oils lias in general a dark greenish- 
black '"1 r, appearing claret-red by transmitted light, 
and varies ordinarily in specific gravity from 0 782 to 
0'850oras it is frequently expressed, from 49 deg. 
B. to 3-1 deg. B. Exceptions to this general statement 
are the Washington county amber oil, the light 
colored oil of Smith's Ferry and some other natural 
yellow or amber oils. In chemical composition it is 
essentially composed of hydrocarbons of the paraffin 
series On U.jU t- v , the gaseous and the solid mem be W 
of the series being alike held dissolved in the liquid 
dues uud smaller amounts of the olefine series OuH^n 
und the ben/.eno CnN.n- ,,. According to Markownikovv, 
as confirmed by Kramer; Pensylvania petroleum also 
contains hydrocarbons of a series CnH.,u, which he 
torniH " naphtlienes." 
The crude oil of tho Pennsylvania field is 
mostly r fiiiid iu the three large cities of Pittsburg 
Pa,, Cleveland, O., and Buffalo, N. Y., or on the 
Atlantic seaboard, iu close proximity to the ports of 
shipment. The transportation of the oil to these 
pi nits, at first effected exclusively by railway tank 
cars, is now very largely effected by means of pipe 
lilies. Most of these are now controlled by the 
National Transit Company. • * • 
If we turn now to the question of foreign petroleum 
production, we will find that only one locality deserves 
to be mentioned in comparison with our Pennsylvania 
production, viz. : Baku, on tho Caspian, in the Russian 
province of the Caucasus. The map (projected on tho 
scroeu) will show the several known petroleum de- 
posits of Kurope and their geographical relation to 
each other, and to some extent the transportation 
facilities, as far as illustrated by the railway con- 
atOtioQB. The second or special map of tho im- 
mediate Baku district will show the producing points 
and the refining center on tho outskirts of the towu 
of Baku. As Been on this last map, there aro two 
great groups of wells, the Surakhimi and the Hilak- 
hani groups. Tho formor exists on the site of the 
old tire worshippers' temple, where the petroleum 
g i-, ha i ti -en i -Mil,,.- from the ground from the pre- 
historic period, \!,.'ilKJ years aifo, to tho present. Only 
two or three companies carry on operations here. 
Tho majority are gathered at Balakhani, in a more 
copious supply was discovered hero, and drilling oper- 
ations wore found to b«> more easily carried on. 
Tho geology of this Baku district is not very deti- 
"A h dure delivered before the Franklin Institute. 
nitely known. Vasilieff, in an article in the Russian 
Mutiny Journal of September, 188C, states that the 
petroleum-bearing strata of the Caucasus belong to 
the Lower Miocene series of the Tertiary epoch, 
the deposits extending in a north easterly to south- 
westerly direction, and tho dip ranging apparently 
between '20 and 100. The petroleum bearing beds are 
composed of sand, calcareous clays, marls and, in 
places, compact sandstones, oftou of great thickness, 
penetrated by bauds of pyrites. The theory of 
Ludwig Nobel, based on numerous oil well records 
made by his company, is that "the oil bearing strata, 
originally running regularly iu an almost diagonal 
direction, became dislocated and thrust hither and 
thither horizontally during some volcanic distur- 
bance, and a sort of irregular cellular character given 
to the petroleum deposits." The peninsula of 
Apsheron is probably honeycombed with thousands 
of these oil cells, which seem to be for the greater 
part independent of each other. They are found at 
all depths down to 825 feet, the extreme depth yet 
reached. The great Droobja oil fountain, which iu six 
months of 1883, poured forth about 55,000,000 gallons 
of oil, had reached a depth of 574 feet only, anil while 
this was flowing at the rate of 2,000,UUO gallons per 
diem, wells a stone's throw off and of lesser depth, 
were giving their daily supply of petroleum totally 
unaffected by it. Many of my audience have, perhaps, 
read newspaper items with regard to the terrific power 
and prolific character of some of these B iku oil wells, 
and may have put down much of the account to ex- 
aggeration. But numerous reliable and unbiased wit- 
nesses have united iu giving figures that we must there- 
fore accept. The largest flowing well we have bud in 
Pennsylvania (the Armstrong No. 2) flowed for a time 
at the rate of over 6,000 barrels (or 200 000 gallons) 
per tweutj -four hours. Wheu Bovertou Redwood, the 
secretary of the British Petroleum Association, visited 
Baku in the fall of 1884, one of Nobel's capped 
fountains was opened for his benefit. A solid column 
of oil, more than a foot iu diameter, shot up to a 
height exceeding 100 feet, and continued to flow with- 
out diminution of violence as long as the valve 
remained open, forming a lake of oil to leeward 
of the well. The derrick was seventy feet high, 
and theoilcolumn occasionally rose to at least double 
this height. This well (Nobel's No. 18) yields at 
the rate of 1,125,000 gallons per twenty-four hours 
whenever opeued. It was, however, exceeded by the 
Droobja well before referred to, and Nobel's No. I), 
eanh of which for a time having yielded double that 
quantity, or over 2,000,000 gallons per twenty-lour 
hours, about eight times the amount yielded by the 
strongest Pennsylvania oil well known. The Nobel 
No. 9 was promptly copped, 1,000,0(10 gallous of oil 
being the total loss, but the Droobja well could not 
be gotten uuder control for over four mouths, aud 
it is supposed that 100,000,000 gallons of oil were 
lost during this period. Not only this, however, but 
this Droobja fountain, which was from 200 to 300 
feet high, threw out so much sand that neighbour- 
ing engine houses aud derricks were partly buried 
by it. The company owning it not only lost their 
oil, but were ruined by tho damages they hod to pay 
tho surrounding well owners for flooding them witU 
sand and oil. The maximum pressure previons to 
the discovery of these two fountains, had been 
four atmospheres, hut in the case of Nobil's 
No. 9 and the Droobja wells tho pressure exceeded 
thirteen atmospheres, or nearly 200 pounds pressure 
to the square inch. Of the 400 wells in the Baku 
district, only about 100 are producing at present, and 
of these 100 some twenty are flowing wells. These 
twenty, howover, would for a time yield more thau 
enough crude oil to suffice for the manufacture of the 
2,000,000 gallons of refined petroleum that the world 
consumes daily. Nobel Brothers had, moreover, at a 
recent date, fourteen oil fountains plugged up and held 
as a reserve. 
Wells in tho Bakudistriot which do not flow, csunot 
be pumped in the ordinary way, iu cousi ,pienc< of the 
largo quantity of the sand present (sometimes us much 
us thirty to forty per cent.), and the oil is raised to 
