BURNING HILL. 
441 
natives lave it out with ladles into bags made of skins, which 
are carried on the backs of asses to Kirkook, or to any other 
mart for its sale. The profits are estimated at thirty or forty 
thousand piastres annually. The Kirkook naphtha is principally 
consumed by the markets in the south-west of Gourd istan, while 
the pits not far from Kufri supply Bagdad and its environs. 
The Kirkook naphtha is black; and close to its wells lies a great 
pool of stagnant water, very muddy, and covered with a thick 
scum deeply tinged with sulphur. On going a few hundred 
yards to the eastward on the summit of the same hill, we were 
conducted to a flat circular spot, measuring fifty feet in diameter, 
full of small holes, to the number of a hundred at least; whence 
we saw issue as many clear flames without an atom of smoke, 
but smelling most sulphureously. In fact, the wdiole surface of 
this perforated plot of ground appeared a crust of sulphur over 
a body of fire within; and experiment seemed to prove it, for 
one of my escort dug a hole into it with his dagger, to a depth 
of ten or twelve inches, when, on this fresh aperture being 
made, a new flame instantly burst forth, rising for some time 
to a greater height than any of the others. From this spot the 
government derives another source of revenue from the sale of 
its sulphur. The natives call the place Baba Gurgur, Gur is an 
Arabic name for naphtha or bitumen. Mr. Rich describes the 
principal bitumen-pit at Hit (which place must have furnished 
the builders of Babylon) as having two sources, and being di¬ 
vided by a wall; on one side of which the bitumen bubbles up, 
and on the other the oil of naphtha. The manner of qualifying 
the bitumen for use as a cement, he observes, is very trouble¬ 
some, for to render it capable of adhering to the brick it must be 
boiled with a certain proportion of oil. Its chief purpose, when 
3 L 
VOL. II. 
