. The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across lt lake five or six miles long, weenter the region covered by these derricks, and our guide takes us to theDroojba well, which spouted a stream of petroleum three hundred feethigh when it was opened. Two million gallons of petroleum were thrownout daily for a fortnight or more from this one well, and two months after BANKRUPTCY FROM STRIKING OIL. 421 it was opened it delivered two linndred and fifty thousand gallons guide said it
. The boy travellers in the Russian empire: adventures of two youths in a journey in European and Asiatic Russia, with accounts of a tour across lt lake five or six miles long, weenter the region covered by these derricks, and our guide takes us to theDroojba well, which spouted a stream of petroleum three hundred feethigh when it was opened. Two million gallons of petroleum were thrownout daily for a fortnight or more from this one well, and two months after BANKRUPTCY FROM STRIKING OIL. 421 it was opened it delivered two linndred and fifty thousand gallons guide said it ruined its owners and drove them into bankruptcy! You will wonder, as we did, how a discovery that ought to have madea fortune for its owners did exactly the reverse. We asked the guide, andhe thus explained it: The Droojba Company had only land enough for a well, and nonefor reservoirs. The oil flowed upon the grounds of other people, and. be-came their property. Some of it was caught on waste ground that be-longed to nobody, but the price had fallen so low that the company didnot realize from it enough to pay the claims of those whose property was. ANXIENT MOUND NEAR THE CASPIAN SEA. damaged by the debris that flowed from the well along with the petro-leum. In this region considerable sand comes with the oil. The sandyproduct of the Droojba well was very large, and did a great deal of dam-age. It covered buildings and derricks, impeded workings, fllled the res-ervoirs of other companies or individuals, and made as much havoc gener-ally as a heavy storm. The process of boring a well is very much the same as in America,and does not merit a special description. The diameter of the bore islarger than in Ameiica; it varies from ten to fourteen inches, and some 27* 422 THE BOY TRAVELLERS IN THE RUSSL\N EMPIRE. of tlie wells have a diameter of twenty inches. Oil is found at a depthof from three linndred to eight luindred feet. Every year the shallowwells are exhausted, and new borin
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