The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-11-28
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it is forced by remarkably powerful en-
gines. Lines of railway run TO the various
centers, and on to the fire temple which
is being overshadowed by works for the
preparation of the white naphtha which
springs hard by, though as it is, the
residue from the brown naphtha, after the
petroleum or kerosene has been extracted,
the success of the venture is doubtful.
As one stands out of Baku, tall shafts
not unlike those of some English coal
mines, come into view, some twenty or
thirty feet high, built of wood, each at
the end of an engine house Hundreds of
them stand scattered, some silent, some
the scene of noisy boring, others of pc
troleum fountains, rising to their tops
in a jet twelve inches III diameter and
then arrested by thick plates of iron
Even at that hight the force of the
stream is so great that the stones and
sand in the course of a few hours bore
through four to six inches of metal, and a
fresh plate has to be in reserve above
Should the tor of the tower be carried
away, the stream will rise to from forty
to sixty feet, and be scattered in rain for
a great distance round. Thus a few years
ago one of the most prolific wells be-
came the ruin of it's owners for, bursting
all bounds, the torrent deluged so much
of their neighbors' works. that all their
capital was spent in paying damages,
and all the oil that was not caught in
their own tanks was lost.
The wisest head has not yet succeeded
in ascertaining how TO discover the oil
pools and streams below ground and the
elaborate sections and plans worked out
by those who control most borings have
revealed little more than the erratc ma
ture of the streams that seem to meander
along the surface of the clay beds and
rocks Of sand and light earths, the pres
sure of which drives it up with such force
when tapped from above. Sometimes the
most successful wells have been sunk on
small plots of ground that could not con-
tain the oil received, while time after time
the monster companies have sunk their
tubes in vain. The largest of these com
panies are Swedish, but there are Armen-
ians and Persians, Tartars, Georgians and
Caucasians, both among the spectators
and the laborers, and many of the origi-
nal landholders - MOhammedans, chiefly
have become immensely rich by leasing
their oil rights for paid-up shares, the
only safe venture about it,
The depth al which the oil is found va
ries greatly even in wells side by side,
and the expense of driving some of the
tubes. that descend to great depths, is
enormous. the whole thing becoming pure
gambling except for those who control
large chances in land and resource. Each
year the average boring grows deeper
and often the oil has to be pumped into
cylinders provided with a valve, in the
bottom, opened by lad who pulls a cord
as it rises before him when he sits COW
cred with spray. Everything round is
saturated, and / have stood in those sheds
the only dy object, with naphtha spout
playing above and falling deafeningly up
on the roof. No one objects to naphtha
there, and the men even wash in it, using
sand Herewith, while all employed have a
fixed allowance for fuel and light No
dwellings more dismal than theirs can be
imagined. Dante should have visited the
spot.
All around between the wells lie lakes
of seething naphtha, which, when clear
of sand and stones, Will be pun1ed into iron
reservoirs. The roads have naphtha
streams by the sides, and naphtha pipes
of all sizes cross and interlace in all direc-
tons till they are hardly passabe. One
rashly-thrown match would set miles in
tons are wisely enforced. But for them
disasters would be terribly frequent
\ very different appearance is presented
by the palpitating Black Town. where in
gigantic furnaces the naphtha is distilled
and churned and distilled again as ben
zine, kerosene, and vaseline, and many
valuable chemicals are one by one remov-
ed, till only the thick black residue Of use
for fuel, is left, and much of this is used
to feed the furnaces themselves. Boilers
so heated closely resemble those intended
for coal or wood, except thar on the inside
of the fire doors are stout jets, through
which 1T Is pumped the length of the fire
box forming bright tongues Of heat-giv-
ing flames Railways and steamers alike
are so heated in Russia.