Los Angeles daily herald., 1886-12-15
OIL AT BAKU.
A "Gusher'' that SpOuts 1900
Tons of Petroleum Daily.
Pail Mall Gazette.

Tons of Petroleum Daily.
Pail Mall Gazette.
The Russian newspapers received to.
day contain a telegram from Baku an.
nouncing the greatest outburst of oil
ever known. 1t runs thus: "Baku,
Oct. 5th-At Tagieff's wells fountain
has commenced playing at the rate of
30, 900 pools of petroleum an hour. It's
height is 225 feet. In spite of its being
five verets from the town the petroleum
sand is pouring upon the buildings
and Streets" 1t is astonishing
that the St. Petersburg correspondents
of the London papers should not have
telegraphed this remarkable phenom.
enon, and can only account for their
remissness on the grounds that they have
either been to preoccupied with Bulgar-
ian matters or have grown so accustomed
to fresh oil fountains at Baku lately, as
to be blunted to the significance of the
present one, yet Tageiff's "gusher" beats
out and out every previous record in the
oil regions of the two hemispheres.
The champion petroleum fountain up to
now has been the "Drooiba," which in
1880 spouted to the height of two or
three hundred feet, at the rate of nearly
thirty. three hundred tons of oil day.
"This single well," I wrote from the
spot in that year, sis spouting more oil
than all the twenty-five thousand wells
in America yielded together"
Such an overflow was looked upon as
almost incredible, and had there not
been other Englishmen at Baku at the
time I should probably have Jared as
badly as Bruce and other travellers. But
the Droojba is nowhere. Tageiff's well
is spouting nearly five hundred tons an
hour, or more than eleven thousand tons
of oil day. If it were in London it would
top the monument by twenty feet and
the mansions of far.off Belgravia would
be covered with its greasy dust. During
the birth throes of Baku oil fountain
stones are hurled terrific distance, and
high wind will carry the fine sand
spouting up with the oil miles away.
The roar of the gas preceding the oil
flow is terrific. and the atmosphere for a
time is rendered almost unbearable.
Compared with such fountains, Droo-
jba and Tagief, the great Geyser of
Iceland is pigmy. Luckily the gas
soon clears off, the stones cease to rattle
about the surrounding buildings and
then the fountain becomes as orderly as
those in Trafalgar square, pouring up
ward sky high with a prodigious roar,
and forming round about the thirteen
or fourteen such orifce vast shoals of
sand, beyond which the petroleum gath.
ers in lakes large enough sometimes to
sail yatcht in.
How long Tagieff's ''spouter" will
last, and what its ultimate yield will be
will depend upon circumstances. The
Dreojba lasted lis days, flowing for
43 days at the average rate of nearly
400 tons day at 1000 tons, 30 days
at about 900 tons, and ii days at 600
tons. The owners then managed to fix
"cap" over the orifce and placed the
we'll under control. The total amount
of oil spouted at the very lowest es-
innate, was 900, 1000 tons, or $1,000, 900
gallons-the highest estimate put it at
500, 900 tons. At rough estimate, had
the oil spouted in America, it would
have realized about million sterling,
and made its owner o millionaire, in
stead of which the fate of the
fountain at Baku was to rem
der its master bankrupt,
for the shoals of sand engulfng
neighboring buildings led to claims for
damages surprising what he got for the
small quantity of oil he was able to
catch and store, while the rest, flowing
beyond on the other peoples property,
was in most cases annexed" and not
paid for. 1t is to be hoped that Tagieff
& Co., will not be so unlucky; but in
any case most of it is sure to be wasted.