Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/268

256 company) well-nigh ruined by the claims brought against them by neighbors whose lands were destroyed by the flood of oil.

Until about nine years ago the working of the oil was entirely in the hands of Russians and Armenians, and everything was done in the most slovenly fashion. The oil drawn from the wells was collected in shallow pits, whence it was ladled into barrels or skins, and then transported eight or ten miles on quaint native carts to the refineries at the town. The purified oil was afterward rebarreled, sent by steamer to the mouth of the Volga, transferred to river-boats, and then again transferred to carts, to be thus conveyed to the railway, and so transported to all parts of Russia. But the labor this involved was great, and the expense of carriage was consequently exorbitant. And all this was greatly in favor of America, which could still contrive to pay freight from Pennsylvania, and yet undersell the Baku oil-merchants in their own Russian markets.

The beginning of a new commercial and political era (of which we as yet see only the dawn) dates from the year 1875, when Ludwig Nöbel (one of two Swedish brothers, engineers, whose father had settled in St. Petersburg as a gunsmith) sent his brother Robert to the Caucasus to purchase walnut-wood suitable for making gun-stocks. On his journey Robert Nöbel chanced to visit Baku, and was so struck with the wonderful capabilities of the oil-region that, on relating his impression to Ludwig, the latter sent him back to make further investigations, and soon afterward followed in person, when he found that the reality far exceeded all that he had heard.

At once perceiving the enormous advantages to be derived from systematic working, with the aid of iron cisterns and pipes, the brothers sought to interest others in the matter, and induce them to co-operate with them. This, however, they found to be quite in vain. Their theories were all denounced as utter folly. The oil-producers, the land transport corps of carriers, the steamboat and railway companies, all refused to aid their schemes, so there was nothing for it but to start unaided in their own fashion.

They calculated that to do so would involve an outlay of about £1,380,000, and to obtain the needful capital it was necessary to fire others with something of their own enthusiasm. The energetic Swedes were not to be daunted. Difficulties of every sort were thrown in their way, but one by one each was fought and conquered. First they imported a body of wise and steady Swedes whom they could trust to work faithfully for them. They then established great refineries at Baku, laid down oil-pipes thence to the oil-fields of Balakhani (distant upward of six miles), and there commenced scientific boring to a depth greater than had yet been attempted. When their borers struck oil there was no waste, as at the other wells, for the pipes were ready to carry the oil direct to the refineries.

The first step having thus been taken, the next was to avoid the