RUSSIAN PETROLEUM. SINCE the chapter on this subject in this volume was printed, the announcement is received in this country of a new and "the greatest outburst of oil ever known." Mr. Charles Marvin, writing to the Pall Mall Gazette' (London), says: "The Russian newspapers just received contain a telegram from Baku, announcing the greatest outburst of oil ever known. It runs thus: 'Baku, October 5—At Tagieff's wells a fountain has commenced playing at the rate of 30,000 pouds of petroleum an hour. Its height is 224 feet. In spite of its being five versts from the town the petroleum sand is pouring upon the buildings and streets.' It is astonishing that the St. Petersburg correspondents of the London papers should not have telegraphed this remarkable phenomenon, and I can only account for their remissness on the grounds that they have either been too pre-occupied with Bulgarian matters, or have grown so accustomed to fresh oil fountains at Baku, lately, as to be blunted to the significance of the present one. Yet Tagieff's 'gusher' beats, out-and-out, every previous record in the oil-regions of the two hemispheres. The champion petroleum fountain up to now has been the Droojba,' which in 1883 spouted to the height of 200 feet or 300 feet, at the rate of nearly 3300 tons of oil a day. This single well,' I wrote from the spot in that year, is spouting more oil than all the 25,000 wells in America yield together.' "Such an outflow was looked upon as almost incredible, and had there not been other Englishmen at Baku at the time, I should have probably fared as badly as Bruce and other travellers. But the Droojba is now nowhere. Tagieff's well is spouting nearly 500 tons an hour, or more than 11,000 tons of oil a day. If it were in London it would top the Monument by 20 feet, and the mansions of faroff Belgravia would be covered with its greasy dust. During the birth throes of a Baku oil fountain stones are hurled a terrific distance, and a high wind will carry the fine sand, spouting up with the oil, miles away. The roar of the gas preceding the oil-flow is terrific, and the atmosphere for a time is rendered almost unbearable. Compared with such fountains as the Droojba and Tagieff, the Great Geyser of Iceland is a pigmy. Luckily the gas soon clears off, the stones cease to rattle about the surrounding buildings, and then the fountain becomes as orderly as those in Trafalgar Square, pouring upwards sky high with a prodigious roar and forming round about the 13-inch or 14-inch orifice vast shoals of sand, beyond which the petroleum gathers in lakes large enough sometimes to sail a yacht in. "How long Tagieff's spouter' will last, and what its ultimate yield will be, will depend upon circumstances. The Droojba lasted 115 days, flowing for 43 days at the average rate of nearly 3400 tons a day, 31 days at 1600 tons, 30 days at about 900 tons, and 11 days at 600 tons. The owners then managed to fix a cap' over the orifice, and placed the well under control. The total amount of oil spouted, at the very lowest estimate, was 220,000 tons, or 55,000,000 gallons; the highest estimate put it at 500,000 tons. At a rough estimate, had the oil spouted in America, it would have realized about a million sterling, and made its owner a millionaire, instead of which the fate of the fountain at Baku was to render its master a bankrupt; for the shoals of sand engulfing neighboring buildings led to claims of damage surpassing what he got for the small quantity of oil he was able to catch and store, while the rest, flowing beyond on to other people's property, was in most cases annexed' and not paid for. It is to be hoped that Tagieff & Co. will not be so unlucky; but in any case most of it is sure to be wasted." Mr. Marvin has just published in London a pamphlet bearing the significant title The Coming Deluge of Russian Petroleum,' in which he calls attention to the fact that this industry is now attracting the attention of every country in Europe but his own, and arrives at the conclusion that unless England displays immediate promptness and energy the petroleum trade of not merely Baku, but of the world, will slip through her fingers. While England has constructed but two or three tank steamers, the Swedes, he says, have built nearly one hundred for the Volga and Caspian alone. INDEX. A BEL TESTER, the, illustrated | American and Russian petroleum, com- and described, 352-354 Acetylides, formation of, 25 Acid, carbonic, a constant ingredient of natural gas, 210, 211 picric, effect of, on crude and on sulphuric, introduction of, into the tank, illustrated and described, 270 Aërial condensation, illustrated and illustrated and described, 268, 269 Air condensation employed in paraffine Allegany district, daily yield of oil of, 149 list of wells of, 149 oil district, production of the, to 458 Allegheny Mountains, western base of, 38 and Oil Creek, general trend of the two streams, 147, sand rock, geological position of, 44 Allen, Alfred II., method of conduct- George (of Franklin), process of parative yield of illuminating 202 oil, decrease in the size of the districts, table of daily aver- age runs of, 1882 to 1886,. field, list of the oil pools com- posing it, 149, 153 marked inferiority of, to the patents for making oil from im- points of fourteen different Rubber Company's works at Cam- surface oil known to and gathered by the Indians, 126 Americans entitled to the merit of when mixed with wool or cotton waste, 307 Annealing thin sheets of metal, advan 224 Anthracite coal, estimated number of Baker, heat units generated by one percentage composition of, Anticlinal axes, important gas wells Apiol, manufacture of, by M. L. Wolf, 386 Apsheron Peninsula, oil belt on the, 97. 98 oil cells on, yield of, 104 Argand, inventor of the first progres- tages of liquid fuel, 116 on the product and exhaustion Ashes of petroleum, gold found in, 166 Atmospheric air, necessity for a proper General Valentine, on the Valentine, on the advantages of Baku, Colonel Yule's estimate of the conferences held at, to improve the early knowledge of petroleum at, 87 Edward Stack's statement of the lubricating oil, production of in Major Marsh's account of, 91, 92 124 oil district, 100-113 number of acres com- first favorable comparison wells, prolific yield of, pre- crude and refined, low prices of, 124 petroleum industry, difficulties at- government aid solicited improvements created by production of, in 1885, 122 Balkan Hills, extraordinary deposits of Barongat Islands, character of the oil Barry, Herbert, comparison of the into true specific gravities, 360, 361 deodorization of, 279 products, distillation of, 279 table of the varying effects of, on treatment of, 262, 263 Schorlemmer's statement of, limestones of Lobsan, metallic ar- shales, oil produced from, 19 99 Creek, first flowing well at, 61 with the oil of the Brad- sand," description of, 149 oil, description of, 149 Blast furnace gas, effect of, as a fuel, 217 Blowpipe principle for securing perfect |