BEMARKABLE OIL SPRINGS.

Thames Star, Volume XV, Issue 4732, 7 March 1884, Page 3

BEMARKABLE OIL SPRINGS.

Mr Charles Marvin writes to the Pall Mall Gazette "as follows :—" In a late issue you called attention to a letter of mine from Baku (a seaport on the borders of thfl Caspian Sea) appearing in the Morning Post, describing the tapping of a well, from which petroleum was spou!> mR 300 feet high, at the rate of 2,000,000 gallons per diem. It may interest you to know that the fountain is still spouting, and *fae efforts of "the owners to stop it have only resulted in "diminishing the outflow to 1000 tons of oil a day. A few days before I left Baku another well, which had been furnishing a regular supply since 1874 suddenly started 'playing.' and was throwing up 500 tons of petroleum every 24 hours. The effect this prodigious outflow is what might nave been expected. Whole lakes of oil are being set on fire to get rid of liquid, or else they have been drained o£F towards the sea. The price of petroleum has suok to 3|d per ton, Nobel Brothers have 14 spouting wells capped over and idle. Itia cheaper for them to buy the oil than use their own. These remarkable Swedes announce that their organisation will be competent by next spring to distil 75,000,000 gallons of kerosene every year, and transport 90,000,000 gallons. But they are only supplying the Eussian, Austrian, and East German markets via the Volga. The South Europeon market still remains to be opened up by way of the new railroad from Baku to Batoum, which is now in full working order. Con. iidering thatr petroleum extends over 1100 miles of the Baku reigon, of which only three have yet been explored, it is clear that the American article must soon be subjected to formidable competition. The oil supply of Baku, I should add, is practically inexhaustible. Since my return I have undertaken some historical researches, and have traced it back over 2000 years. At all ages- the region seems to have been, as now, ' saturated- with petroleum.