Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1897-01-30
COAL Oil.

CUAL OlL.
The builders of Babel used clay for
bricks and slime for mortar. An ex-
animation of any of the ruins of
Mesopotamia will show that asphaltic
mortar was the bed into which their
alabaster wainscoat pieces were set,
and with which their vast terraces
were compacted, and probably their
roofs protected; the use of which 80
abundantly only facilitated their de-
struction when the torch was at last
applied.
The pitch used was made by evapo-
rating petroleum. That of Babylon
was obtained from the sulphur, brine,
oil.springs of Is; the products of
which are said to be sold in the village
of Hits.
The story of the catastrophe Of
sodom and Gomorrah, if not origina.
ted, was perpetuated by the vast accu-
mutations of rock-oil in the centre Of
the Dead sea, as on the surface of
heated, simmering brine-vat, where it
is hardened by oxydation, and drifted
to the surrounding shores. A similar
phenomenon-a cake Of pure petro.
leum-elicited the amazement Of the
Spaniards who discovered Trinidad.
Many have spoken of the discovery
of coal oil as Of recent date, and mis-
taken it for q modern invention but
oil springs have been known and es-
teemed, and even worshiped, in every
age and many countries.
Herodotus describes bitumen spring
in Zacynthias Zante, one of the Ionian
islands; and probably this spring suf-
feed the Egyptian nation for their
incessant, religious use of petroleum
for mummies, the embalmment of
which was universal. The "Greek
fire" of modern times was probably
compounded of petroleum, from the
Zantean springs. Dioscorides tells US
that rock oil was collected in Sicily,
and burned in the lamps of Agrigen-
tum.
The classic Eome of naphtha is Baku,
a high peninsula on the western shore
of the Caspian sea, containing 35 villa
ges and 10000 souls, rocky and sterile,
without an attractive spot, without
stream, without one drop of sweet
water, except what falls directly from
the clouds, and without a tree. But
coal-gas rises everywhere, from a soil
saturated with naphtha, and numer-
Gus volcanoes in action discharge vol
umes of mud.
From the time of Zoroaster, the
naphtha of Baku has been sent all
over Asia, for the service of the sacred
fire of the Parsees. The liquid streams
spontaneously through the surface,
and rises wherever hole is bored.
But especially at Balegan, six miles
from the capital village, the sides of
the mountain stream with black oils,
which collect in reservoirs, constructed
in an unknown ancient time; while
not far off, a spring of white oil gushes
from the foot.
Upon their festival occasions, the
people pour tons of this oil over the
surface of the water, in bay of the
Caspian, and then set, as it were, earth,
sea and sky in blaze of light. Some
times, far grander exhibitions take
place naturally.
In 1917, a column of flame, 600
yards in diameter, broke out near
Balegan, and roared with boiling brine
and elected rocks for IS days together,
until it raised a mound 900 feet in
height.
The population use the oil for light
and fuel, and coat their roofs with it.
A clay pipe or hollow reed, stepped in
lime-water, set upright in the floor of
a dwelling, serves as natural and sutti-
cient gas-pipe.
The Ghebers bottle it for foreign
use; the Atecsbjahns fire with it their
lime-kilns and burn their dead. No
wonder the religious sentiment of ORR
entail mystics was entranced by such a
land of fire as Baku, where, in the
fssures of the white and sulphurous
soil, the naphtha vapors flicker into
flame; where a boiling lake is covered
with a flame devoid of sensible heat;
where, after the warm showers of au-
tumn, the surrounding country seems
on fire, flames in enormous volumes
rolling along the mountains with in
credible velocity, or standing still ex-
pectant; where the October and No
vember moons light up with an. azure
tint the entire west, and the Soghda-ku,
Mount Paradise, the eastern buttress
of the Caucasus, covers its upper halt
with a glowing robe, while, if the
night be moonless, innumerable jets
of flame, isolated, or in crowds, cover
all the plains, leaving the mountains
in obscurity.-saturday Night.