PART 2.] Mallei : On the mineral resources of T^aniri, Cheduha, 215 
A mile or so norti-west of Kangautau, there are a dozen or so of oil wells 
in the hed of a nalla of the same character as those at Minbain. They are 
sunk in a gray, more or less argillaceous sand (disintegrated sandstone ?), some 
being lined with bamboo wickerwork. They were first opened last year. The 
best well, as I was told, yielded eight or ten bottles of oil the first day, hut the 
yield rapidly diminished.^ 
The following table contains as complete a list as I have been able to make 
of the localities in the Rtoii group of Islands and the Barangas, where oil has 
been obtained or indications of it observed. With reference to the Barangas it 
should be I’emai-ked that the results given are, with the exception of those 
connected with Mr. Savage’s wells, those obtained up to the time of my visit. 
Boring operations had, however, then only just commenced, so that the small 
quantities of oil mentioned cannot in themselves be taken as any evidence of 
a scanty supply. 
* Captain Halsted states that in Cheduha oil is collected by turning up the soil, where 
oleiferous, to a depth of 2 feet, and surrounding it by a bank of earth, so as to form a shallow 
pond during the raius, about 20 yards square; gas and oil rise through the water, the latter of 
which is skimmed off and collected. (J. A. S., B,, X, 369). This crude method was not practised 
in any of the oil-bearing localities I visited. 
