THE NEW FUEL: THE RUSSIAN TERRA DEL FUEGO.*
MR. MARVIN has the pen of a ready writer, and like some other authors similarly gifted, he writes too much. We do not mean merely that he writes too many books, but that he pats altogether too many words into them, and gives us far too much of his own personality. It is impossible to avoid the suspicion that he is under contract with his publisher to supply a certain amount of copy ; and his egotism almost passes belief. He chronicles his movements, his eatings and drinkings, his uprisings and downsittings, as minutely as if he were a sovereign-prince making a progress, and delivers judgment on men and things with the calm assurance of an infallible Pope pronouncing a new dogma. He complains of being plagiarised, and consoles himself with the reflection that this is the fate "of all authors who have reached a certain eminence." We regret to learn from his preface that his works involve him in a pecuniary loss, but would point out that the remedy is in his own hands ; let him restrain his passion for scribbling within reasonable bounds, and make his books of less portentous size.
The rather catchpenny title of Mr. Marvin's present work (the second, we believe, he has published during the last few months) is borrowed from the name given by the G-uebers, or fire-worshippers, to a place a few miles from Baku, where a constant flame, once regarded by these as sacred and eternal, issues from a cleft in the rock, fed by subterranean gases. Ages ago Baku was famous for its naphtha. It now supplies the whole of Russia and a great part of Germany with petroleum, and may possibly, at no distant date, drive the petroleum of America
from the markets of Europe. Mr. Marvin's book gives an account of a recent visit to this remarkable region ; and after he gets to the point—somewhere about page 186—his descriptions are as graphic as his information is valuable.
The petroleum-field of the Russian Empire is of almost incalculable vastness. Spon's Encyclopedia estimates it at 14,000 square miles, and Mr. Marvin does not consider this an exaggeration. In the region of the Caucasus and the Caspian alone there are three oil-bearing strata, running direct from the Crimea to the Balkan Hills, a stretch of 1,500 miles long and ten broad. At Baku the supply seems absolutely inexhaustible. The more the ground is tapped the faster the fluid seems to flow :— "Many pumping-wells have been worked for years without the level of the oil being lowered in the slightest degree, or the wells in any way affected by discharges from adjoining fountains, proceeding from greater or lesser depths. The peninsula of Apsheron is probably honeycombed with thousands of oil-cells. One of these cells has already given a million and a half barrels of oil, and yet the pump draws the oil as freely and as readily to the surface as when the basin was first tapped by the biring ten years ago. The subterranean basins vary considerably in size ; but while wellfilled cells are often found close to the surface, experience seems to show that the deeper the Baku people bore, the more copious is the supply. At any rate, the Baku firms are boring deeper every year, and every year the fountains become more terrific. The rule is, when a cell is tapped, to let the oil flow to the surface—if it does flow—until it ceases running, and then to pump it. When the cell is sucked dry, the engineers begin to bore again, and go on boring until another one is reached. This process goes on continually until some copious supply is reached, which is sufficient to last for years. This, as in the case of the Korokeff well, sometimes assumes a permanent character. In America, a depth of 1,000 feet is thought nothin., of in boring for oil ; a man is not particularly discouraged if he penetrates as far without discovering petroleum. In Baku, however, an engineer begins to look for it at 100 feet, and no well has yet got lower than 825. In 1883 two flowing wells in less than a month npheaved nearly thirty million gallons of oil apiece from a depth of 700 feet, and when they were finally plugged, to 'cork-up' their supply for future use, they were still flowing at a Tate of about 20,000 gallons of oil per diem. Nobel Brothers have got fourteen such wells corked-up,' because crude petroleum will not fetch more than a few pence a ton at Baku just now. Yet the deepest of these fourteen basins, crammed with oil, is less than 800 feet from the surface. In America there are a number of wells in the Bradford region 2,000 or 3,000 feet deep, and one in West Virginia which will soon be 5,000."
America has 25,000 drilled petroleum wells, Baku only 400; yet one of the latter has thrown-up in the course of a single -day as much as all the American holes put together. When the Baku engineers "strike oil," they make haste to " cork-up " the hole, by putting on it an iron cap, until the fluid can be placed under proper restraint. Sometimes, however, the cap flies off, and then there is a catastrophe, one of which Mr. Marvin witnessed. With a roar that could be heard several miles round the oil flew into the air twice the height of the Great Geyser in Iceland. After observing that when the first outbreak took place the liquid had knocked off the roof and part of the sides of the derrick, the author continues as follows :— " A strong southerly wind enabled us to approach within a few yards of the crater on the firmer side, and to look down into the sandy basin formed round about the bottom of the derrick, where the oil was bubbling and seething round the stalk of the oil-shoot like a geyser. The diameter of the tube up which the oil was rushing was ten inches. On issuing from this the fountain formed a clearlydefined stem, about eighteen inches thick, and shot up to the top of the derrick, where, in striking against the beam, which was already worn half through by the friction, it got broadened out a little. Then, continuing its course more than 200 feet high, it curled over and fell in a deuce cloud on the north side, forming a sand-bank, over which the olive-colorized oil ran in innumerable channels towards the lakes of petroleum that had been formed on the surrounding estates. Now and again the sand, flowing up with the oil, would obstruct the pipe, or a stone would clog the course ; then the column would sink for a few seconds lower than 200 feet., to rise directly afterwards with burst and a roar to 300 feet Standing on the top of the sand-shoal we could see where the oil, after flowing through a score of channels from the ooze, formed in the distance on lower ground a whole series of oil-lakes, some broad enough and deep enough to row a boat in. Beyond this, the oil could be seen flcwing away in a broad channel towards the sea."
No wonder crude petroleum fetches only a few pence a ton at Baku. The organisers—almost creators indeed—of the Caspian . oil-industry are the Nobel Brothers, one of whom enjoys the questionable distinction of being the inventor of dynamite. The robels were the first to lay down pipes for carrying oil from Baku to the port of shipment on the Caspian ; they have sixty petroleum trains running on Russian railways, and supplying with oil the towns and villages through which they pass. The firm are now extending their operations into Germany and Austria, and exporting considerable quantities of kerosine
to other parts of Europe. The story of these remarkable brothers is a veritable romance. The father was a Swede of great ingenuity and skill, who, establishing himself in Russia as an engineer, made and lost a fortune, and died insolvent. His son Ludwig wound-up the business for the creditors, and saved 2500 out of his salary, with which, twenty years ago, he began business on his own account. He is now worth 2500 a day ! Not all this was gained by petroleum, however ; for when he went to Baku eight years ago he had already a fortune of £400,000, made out of Government contracts. He owes his wealth less to a genius for speculation than to a high talent for organisation and great engineering skill. In Russia they call him the "Oil King." Of the other brothers, one invented the torpedo and the other made a million by dynamite. The firm sell fifty-four million gallons of oil in Russia every year, yet not a drop except for ready-money. "All the year round the sixty oiltrains of Nobel Brothers are running over an area twenty times larger than Great Britain, yet at any moment of the day Ludwig Nobel can go into the office and see at a glance the actual whereabouts of every one of them."
Petroleum is to all appearance destined to effect changes in commerce and industry, second only to those wrought by steam itself. Petroleum waste is already being extensively used for fuel on Russian railways ; the steam-ships on the Caspian use nothing else. It is said that crude petroleum, after a few days exposure to the air, may be used for the same purpose with perfect safety, and petroleum fuel can be delivered at Batoum at twenty-six shillings a ton. If the scheme for running pipes from Baku to Batoum be carried out, it can be laid down for very much less. But weight for weight, petroleum goes nearly three times as far as coal, and coal being worth at Batoum from £2 to 23 a ton, it follows that twenty-six shillingsworth of the liquid is equal to from four to nine poundsworth of the solid fuel. The extinction of our coal-trade with Russia has become a question of a few months. Nor is this all. Petroleum goes into far less bulk than solid fuel, and can be handled at far less cost. If it could be used by ocean-going steamers for long voyages, the gain would be enormous. By storing the oil in the ballast tanks, the space now occupied by coal could be utilised for cargo ; and as the fires are fed automatically—the petroleum being pulverised by a jet of superheated steam—the cost of stoking would be reduced to almost nothing. And this is no mere dream, but a present reality. "So simple is the fuel to use, and so reliable is the action of the pulveriser," writes Mr. Marvin, "that the English and Russian engineers running the steamers from Baku to the mouth of the Volga, told me that, having turned on and adjusted the flame at starting, they concern themselves no more about the fires until they reach their destination in a couple of days' time." Petroleum is, moreover, clean to use, and makes no smoke.
Another and highly valuable peculiarity of petroleum is its existence in places remote from coal-measures, and where coal for steam or any other purpose is simply unattainable. There are large deposits of it in Beluchistan, the Punjab, and probably in other parts of India. It ought also to be found in the West Indies, iu the Soufrie.re district of St. Vincent, the pitch-lake region of Trinidad, and on the Northern coast of Venezuela. Enterprising capitalists in want of outlets for their money could not well embark in a more promising adventure than a quest for petroleum springs. The new fuel is not likely to supersede coal in England ; but the struggle for existence and the lowness of freights may compel its adoption by all steamers which make long voyages. The resulting economy in our rapidly-lessening coal-measures, though it might not be viewed with satisfaction by the owners of collieries, would be an advantage to the community, and indefinitely postpone that dearth of fuel with which our industrial supremacy has so long been threatened.
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