Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/265

Rh and even seriously to affect the interests of our indigo-planters, as they have already injured the madder-cultivators of Turkey and Holland.

America has devised various furnaces, of which petroleum is the only fuel. These are chiefly used by metal-workers, as it is found that in such labor as bending armor-plates, and iron-work generally, mineral oil raises the required heat in half the time required by iron.

From America we turn to Asia, which, in more senses than one, may be called the Cradle of Light; for there is good reason to believe that, upward of four thousand years ago, the people of Nineveh and Babylon had found out this use for the mineral oil which flowed from the fountains of Is, on the Euphrates. It was collected in great pits, and the more solid deposits formed the asphalt (or, in Biblical phrase, "slime") which was used by the builders of Babylon to cement their sun-dried bricks.

Whether the petroleum-springs and asphalt-shores of the Dead Sea—the Lake Asphaltites—were ever turned to equally practical purpose does not appear; but Burmah has long recognized the value of her home supplies of earth-oil, derived from wells near the river Irrawaddy; and Burmese naphtha and Rangoon tar find their way even to British markets. These Burmese wells are sunk to a depth of about sixty feet, and yield an oil of the consistency of treacle.

I am told that Hindostan and Siberia have alike received their share in this distribution of the earth-mother's gifts, and that both in China and Japan native naphtha has long been employed in certain districts for burning in lamps. I infer, however, that the production can not be very great, as the consumption of American kerosene in those countries is already enormous, and it has found its way to small villages in remote districts of Japan, to which no less than 5,600 tons were last year imported from America. China generally welcomes such foreign boons less readily; but even the Celestial Empire does not disdain to accept cheap oil, and 82,000 tons were there disposed of last year, while India consumed 94,000 tons.

The Guebres of Persia have ever recognized a sacred fire-symbol in the flame of the native naphtha which flows from the soil in various parts of Persia in so pure a form as to burn without rectification—in fact, the name, though now applied to various artificially produced fluids, is derived from the Persian word nafata, "to exude." In its purest natural form it is a light, colorless fluid, consisting of carbon and hydrogen, without any oxygen. In Persia, fire-temples were erected near the naphtha-springs, and reverent pilgrims came from afar to worship at the temple of Surukhani, on the western shore of the Caspian, where, for at least two thousand years, the sacred earthfed flame burned unceasingly.

In the American consul's report for 1880, he mentioned that this temple was still frequented, that priests came from India to conduct the services, and that inexhaustible supplies of gas to feed the sacred