. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. , have proved wholly unsuccessful. Thetotal output for 1899 * (to which the Binagadi area contributedvery little) was 2,167,801,130 gallons. This was over 162,000,000gallons more than in 1898, but though this great increase looks * The figures here given are taken from the report of the official Russian supervisorof the petroleum industry at Baku, as published in the official Viestnik Finanzof. THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 225 very satisfactory at first sight, further examination
. All the Russias: travels and studies in contemporary European Russia, Finland, Siberia, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. , have proved wholly unsuccessful. Thetotal output for 1899 * (to which the Binagadi area contributedvery little) was 2,167,801,130 gallons. This was over 162,000,000gallons more than in 1898, but though this great increase looks * The figures here given are taken from the report of the official Russian supervisorof the petroleum industry at Baku, as published in the official Viestnik Finanzof. THE OIL-WELLS OF BAKU 225 very satisfactory at first sight, further examination gives it a lessencouraging aspect. In the first place, the relative increase com-pared with previous years shows a marked decline; and second,these increases are nothing like so great as the increases in energyand expenditure in boring operations. In 1899 the enormoussum of £2,600,000 was spent on boring alone, and 572,761 feetof wells were bored, against 402,605 feet in 1898—an increaseof over 42 per cent. Thus for a 42 per cent, increase of effort,only an 8 per cent, increase of output was obtained. This is not. The Railway Station, Baku. quite so bad as it looks, for a number of wells, especially on theBibi-Eibat area, were only commenced in the second half of theyear, and could not have become productive. But it points tothe serious fact* that the whole oil-field is becoming less produc-tive. This conclusion is clearly borne out by other figures. Thenumber of inactive wells, for instance, has increased by nearly50 per cent., whereas the number of active wells has increased byonly 24 per cent. Of the five areas, moreover, only Sabuntchi andBalakhani showed an absolute increase of output. Most sig-nificant of all, however, are the facts that the fountains — 226 ALL THE RUSSIAS wells where the oil is forced to the surface by confined gas, show-ing that the seam has no other sufficient outlet—have decreasedby one-half; and that the average productiveness of wells ha
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, booksubjecttolstoy, bookyear1902
