Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1910-07-03
RAILWAY ACROSS THE CAUCASUS
BY WILLIAM E. CURTIS.
snce Of The Star and the Chicago Record Herald

and the chicago Record-Hefald.
of anchoring fleeces Of wool from their
sheep in the streams as traps to catch
the grains Of gold that float down in
the water.
The Caucasians have always been
and In every museum of Europe you
can find examples of their skill and
taste Even today in the bazaars of old
Tffis long streets are occupied ex-
clusfvely by cunning artificers making
cups and fiagons. handles for swords
and knives. pistols and guns. orna-
ments for the body and the household.
bowls and other dishes for the table
and all sorts of decorative and useful
objects Of the precious metals. They
are especially skillful in combining
iron and silver and iron and gold.
although this art has never reached
In similar products in Toledo, Spain.
There are rumors Of coal mines. and
they probably exist, but the abundance
of timber has not encour-
Mineral aged the people to work
vr.o1+h them. Iron and copper are
found frequently from
which the ancients always had an
abundant supply.
ApOul Twenty -HNe miles I'D the rail-
way from Batum is an extensive OPP
GRAFTON by the Caucasus Copper Com
pany, an English syndicate
organized by J. p. Morgan & Co. of
London. iney are getting out a good
deal of copper, an average of 100 tons
month. which Is shipped to Moscow
and st. Petersburg for local use. The
superintendent, Mr.. Van. is an Ar
menian; his assistant. Mr.. Morgan, is
an Englishman who learned his trade
In the copper mines of Arizona, and
they have the aid of fifteen American
mining engineers and chemists
young man came over with us in
March on TIE steamer Berlin from the
geological survey at Washington to
join the party At present the works
are being almost entirely reconstructed
and a new plant is being installed.
About 500 people are employed in the
mines and in the shelters.
Petroleum has been known in the foot
hills and along the seacoast at the east
ern extremity of the Caucasus mountains
from the earliest times, and where the
wells and refineries of Baku now are the
followers of ZOroaster, the fire worshiperS
of Persia. even SO far back as the days
of Daniel the prophet. used to go there
to worship. Until few years ago the
Parsees of Bombay, who are the descend
ants of Zoroaster and his disciples,
maintained temple over an Oil we'll
burning for twenty centuries: but mod
ern enterprise or iconoclasm, if you will
permit that term, has snuffed them out.
I do not know why we are called eau
casians. because the Inhabitants of the
Caucasus do not resem
Caucasus BILE us in any way ex-
p.or,. cept that they. like us.
OPA~' were made in the image
of their Maker. They should not be
selected as type of the white race. as
distinguished from the negro. the Malay
and the Monaghan and other races. but
1 suppose there is some honest explana-
ton.
There is a railway on each side of the
Caucasus mountains. That on the north
ern side runs from Baku. the oil center,
to the city of Rostov. at the mouth of
the River Don, and the head of the Sea
of AzOv. That on the south runs from
Batum to Baku. and is the principal
thorOughfare for the shipment of oil to
other parts of Europe than Russia. The
annual shipments Of refined petroleum
from Batum to the rest of the world
have averaged about four million barrels.
but they are falling off very rapidly be-
cause, as l was told in Batum, the Rus
sian refiners cannot compete with the
Standard Oil Company either in the
quality or the price of their product.
Russian oil has practically been driven
out of all the European countries except
Turkey. Roumania, Hungary and Russia,
and the Standard Oil Company is now
"the light Of ASIA without a rival fame.
There has always been a strong suspi-
cion that controlling spirits in the Stand.
80
stock in the most important companies at
Baku. and that would be very easy. be-
cause the shares are sold daily on the
bourses Of Paris. Petersburg. Berlin and
the other principal cities of Europe.
The Standard Oil Company has always
kept an agent in Baum, not to sell or
buy but to watch things and
Standard keep the people at the New
~, ~ York headquarters promptly
va W. Informed of the operations of
the Russian companies; but of late years
Mr.. Rockefeller and his associates seem
to have lost their interest in the subject.
There is no monopoly at Baku. but
many independent companies have been
trying to ruin each other for years, and
only four or five of the strongest have
survived cut-throat competition. The No
bel Company. and another which is con-
trolled by the Rothschilds in Paris. have
pipe lines following the railway track be-
tween Baku and Batum, and still ship
in tank steamers and also in tin cases to
the different ports Of the Mediterranean.
And what does not go out from Batum
is shipped by rail from Baku via Rostov
and by steamer across the Caspian and
up the rivers that empty into it to differ
ent parts of the Russian empire
At the time of the revolution in Russia
four years ago the employees of both oil
companies at Batum struck. Fifteen
hundred men on the Nobel dock and 1000
more who were working for the other