Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1891-07-12

| and does an extensive business In the
way of manufacturing tools. He.i a thor
| ough mechanic, and his Yankee ingenuity
| has been of great assistance in teaching the
Russians something about the business of
manufacturing and using fishing tools. Mr..
| Chambers observation leads him to think
that the Russian mechanic is much inferior
| to an American in the matter of skill and
1 ingenuity, and an American is o master
among them
Germany Supplies the Machinery.
At the same time it is not American
| machinery that cuts the figure in the Rus
sian oil fields, as one might suppose. 1t is
mostly of German manufacture, although
| the Nobels make a great deal of oil well
| machinery, pipe and supplies of all kinds
near Warsaw.
The workmen about the wells are largely
Tartars. They work for about 25 cents a
day, and think they are well paid. Few of
these, however, are drillers The driller is
a gentleman, compared to him, and the
Tartar is a sort of helper, doing the heavy
work, while the driller simply looks after
the temper-screw, or whatever corresponds
to our temper-screw. These Tartars live in
small huts and subsist mostly on black
bread
Mr.. Chambers thought that not more
than 10 per cent of the men engaged in the
business of refining were Russians, the rest
being Americans and Tartars of the intelli-
gent class They had Russianized their
names by termination of "of' or "sky,"
but they were not Russians by birth or
originally by selection. Many of them were
thoroughly familiar with the business of re-
fning and Americans could teach them but
Little in this respect.
A Monster OIL Refinery.
The largest refinery belongsto the Nobels,
and has capacity of 200, 900 poods of crude
day. This is about "a, 600 barrels. There
are in the nelghborhood of 100 refneries at
Balzu, the maximum capacity of these re-
fineries being upward of IL, 900, 900 barrels
of refined. They have 1919 stills, 4,250
tank cars, and employ 2, 1856 workmen. They
have tankage for ,140, ,738 barrels of re-
fined, 2, 1851, ,673 barrels of crude and !, ,594 O09
barrels of residuum (barrels of AZ gallons
each). Of these refners the following
named companies are also large producers:
Nobels, Shibueff& & Co., Rothschilds, Tagreff,
Zatouroff & Co., Societe Caspian, LianOsof,
Arafelof, Adamoff and the Societe de Baku.
Mr.. Chambers gave me an interesting ac-
count of monster well which he went to
see three miles south of Baku, where it was
struck some time ago. ''The well," said
Mr.. Chambers, ''was producing $4,000 bar
rels day if it was producing a quart. 1
had seen many large wells in America and
also in Russia, but this far exceeded any
thing in the nature of an oil geyser that L
had ever witnessed. 1t was flowing the full
size of ten-inch pipe and with roaring
that could be heard mile away. They do
not have tankage at the wells in Russia, and
the well was flowing into reservoirs in the
ground, and the reservoirs were then all
filled and the oil was running on the ground
in every direction.
The OIL Full of Sand.
"There were three gate valves on the
well, but there was no restraining its flow.
There was great deal of sand in the oil,
| and it cut through everything with which it
came in contact. 1t worked on everything