Page:Provincial geographies of India (Volume 4).djvu/86

70 static pressure by the water in the adjacent troughs, so that when the overlying clay-caps are pierced by the drill, the oil is forced up to the surface and frequently 100 or 150 feet into the air. At Singu and Yenangyat, on the Irrawaddy, some distance above Yenangyaung, the arch is not symmetrical as it is in the latter locality, but is much steeper on the eastern side than it is on the western. Two small fields, one in the Upper Chindwin and another at



Minbu on the Irrawaddy, are yielding oil in small quantities. On the Arakan coast the production is more or less negligible. From Burmese crude oil we get petrol, illuminating oil, lubricating oil and wax for candles.

The most famous oil wells are at Yenangyaung, in Magwe. They have attracted the notice of all travellers who passed that way. Symes, who saw them in 1795, writes: "The celebrated wells of petroleum which supply the whole (Burmese) Empire and many parts of India.... The mouth