Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1886-11-14
ruE GREAT OIL STRIKE Ar BAKU.
Eleven Thousand roaa Of Petroleum
spomsing Every Day.


ever Known. 1t runs thus: - Baku,
October 5.-At Tsgiei's wells foun-
tain has commenced playing at the rate
of 80 600 pools of petroleum an hour.
lis height is 22i feet. In spite Of its
being five yersts from the town, the
petroleum sand is pouring upon the
buildings and streets" IL Is sstonlsh-
ing that the st. Petersburg correspond
ents Of the London papers should not
have telegrsphed this remarkable phe-
nomepon, and | can only account for
their remlssness on the ground thai
they bave either been 100 preoccupied
with Bulgarian matters or have grown
80 accustomed to fresh.oil fountains a.
Bsku lately as to be blunted to the
significance Of the present one. Yet
Iogicf's "gusher" beats out and ont
every previous record ~ tho oil regions
Of the two hemisphere. The cham
pion petroleum fountain up 70 now has
been the Dtoojba." which in 1883
spouted to the height Of 200 or 300
feet, at the rate Of nearly $500 tons OF
oil q day. This single we'll, | wrote
from the spot in that year, " is spout
ing more oil than all than all the 25,-
600 wells in America yield toge her."
Such an overflow was looked upon
as almost incredible, and had there not
been other Englishmen at Baku at the
time should probably have Jared as
badly as Bruce and other travellers.
But the Droojba is nowhere. Tasieif 3
we'll is spouting nearly 500 tons an
hour. or more than ii 600 tons of oil q
day. If it were in London it would
top the monument by twenty feet, and
the mansions Of far-oiT Belgrayia would
be covered with its greasy dust. DID,
ring the birth.throes Of a Baku oil
fountain stones are hurled a terrific
distance and high wind will carry
the fine sand spouting up with the oil
miles away. The roar Of the gas pre-
ceding the oil.ilow is terrific, and the
atmosphere for time is rendered al
most unbearable. Compared with such
fountains as Droojba and Tagieff, the
Great Geyser of Iceland is a plgmy.
Luckily the gas soon clears off, the
stones cease to rattle about the sur
rounding buildings, and then the foun-
tain becomes as orderly as those in
Trafalgar Square, pouring upward sky
high with prodigiOus roar, and form.
ing round about the thirteen or four
teen-inch orifce vast shoals Of sand,
beyond which the petroleum gathers in
lakes large enough sometimes to sail a
yacht in.
How long Tagiefi's " spouter" will
last, and what its ultimate yield will
be will depend upon circumstances.
The Droojba lasted llj days, flowing
for 43 days at the average rate Of
nearly 3,4OO tons day, 81 days at
l,600 tons, 80 days at about 900 tons,
and IL days at coo tons. The owners
then managed to fix soap" over the
orifice and placed the we'll under con-
troll. The total amount of oil spouted,
at the very lowest estimate, was
22O, 600 tons, or 100000 gallons
the highest estimate put it at 100000
tors. At rough estimate, had the
oil spouted in America it would have
realized about a million sterling, and
made its owner a millionaire, instead
of which the fate of the fountain at
Baku was to render its master bank
rupt, for the shoals of sand engulfng
neighboring buildings led to claims for
damage SURPRISING what he got for the
small quantity of oil he was able to
catch and store, while the rest, flowing
beyond on to other peoples property,
was in most cases annexed " and not
paid for. 1t is to be hoped that Ia
gieff & Co. will not be so unlucky; bat in
any case most Of it is sure to be wasted.
During the autumn las if to spite the
American Consul, who reported short
time ago that Baku was beginning to
get dry there has been a whole sue
cession of fountains, and in consequence
there is such a glut that Tagieft will
hardly be able TO obtain for ton $50
gallons) OF their oil the price that the
London oil importer pays America for
q single gallon Of the refined article.
For want Of pipeline to run it to the
Black sea most Of the q million gal
Ions of oil spouted daily by the foun-
tains Of Tagieiis will sink into the
soil, deteriorate in thu lakes, or mngle
with the waters of the Caspian. Such
a barbarous waste Of the worlds re-
sources will be as keenly regretted by
the Russian Government "a by any in.
dignant scientist in Europe. II the
resources of Tagieff & Co. prove in
adequate to quell the fountain That is,
cap over the we'll and keep the oil be-
low the surface until wanted) the Min
lister Of Crown Domains will doubtless
put into effect policy agreed upon on
the occasion of the Droojba Outburst,
and send engineers with full power to
utilize all available means to plug the
orifice. Whether they will succeed is
another matter. When the DroOjba
began to slacken in force it was still
powerful enough, with its sand-blas..
formed by the cOmmingled sand and
oil, to grind to. atoms in an hour or two
the three-inchg ION boiler plate the en-
gineers tried to fasten on top of the
tube. On the 9Th Of October the foun-
tain of Tsgieff's was spouting with ten
times the intensity Of the Droojba when
the latter achieved this memorable feat,
and however much the Russian Gov
ernmeRt may command" the latest
Of the Bsku gushsrs will probably
prove more than match for the engi-
neering skill and resources brough. to
bear upon it.
The parAdin industry is one in which
Scotland takes great pride, aud there
arc optimists who think it has still an
important future before it. To pro-
duce Scotch parsilin every year over
2,2j0,000 tons Of shale coal have to be
dug from the mines, and the energie,
of thousands of men have to be utilized
before the 10000, 600 gallons Of crude
shale oil extracted from 1t can be SEM
TO the refneries to be distilled into the
illuminant used in lamps. At Baku a
few men bore few hundred feet, snC