Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/427

Rh it was opened it delivered two hundred and fifty thousand gallons daily. Our guide said it ruined its owners and drove them into bankruptcy!

"You will wonder, as we did, how a discovery that ought to have made a fortune for its owners did exactly the reverse. We asked the guide, and he thus explained it:

The Droojba Company had only land enough for a well, and none for reservoirs. The oil flowed upon the grounds of other people, and became their property. Some of it was caught on waste ground that belonged to nobody, but the price had fallen so low that the company did not realize from it enough to pay the claims of those whose property was



damaged by the débris that flowed from the well along with the petroleum. In this region considerable sand comes with the oil. The sandy product of the Droojba well was very large, and did a great deal of damage. It covered buildings and derricks, impeded workings, filled the reservoirs of other companies or individuals, and made as much havoc generally 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 is larger than in America; it varies from ten to fourteen inches, and some