o obtain supplies of oil for medicinal and
domestic purposes. Herodotus has given an interesting description of
them. Even in the early part of the twelfth century petroleum was an
important article of export from Baku. Crude petroleum was used to
anoint camels for mange. In the first part of the eighteenth century
Peter the Great annexed Baku to Russia. After his death it was ceded
back to Persia; but in 1801 it was again annexed to Russia.

To-day Baku is one of the important commercial cities of the Russian
Empire. Its shipping is immense and to further its commerce there are
magnificent docks. The city is built on the shores of a large bay,
sheltered from adverse winds by an island that acts as a breakwater. The
water-front has an anchorage for thousands of vessels. One may walk
along the strand for eight miles and find ships lined up in front of the
city the entire distance.

The Caspian is filled with various kinds of fish, and while bathing one
might reasonably have the impression that he was swimming in an
aquarium. In fact, this place is an ideal one for an Izaak Walton. On
the islands beyond the peninsula, projecting out from the Baku section,
petroleum gas has flamed for centuries, lighting the heavens at night
with a lurid glare that is visible far out at sea.

In Baku Bay, between two peninsulas, there was a spot, now
commercialized into a producing oil well, where the gas came to the
surface with sufficient force to upset small boats. Many of the oil
wells are spouters for a long time after they are first bored, and when
they cease to spout they can frequently be made to renew their activity
by deeper boring.

Wells have been pumped for years without the level of the oil being
lowered in the slightest. Some of the wells which have caught fire
accidentally have burned for years, sending up their pillars of fire to
a great height. In a few instances the richest wells have made the
owners practically bankrupt by overwhelming the buildings on adjoining
property with sand and petroleum, spreading ruin far and wide before the
flow could be checked.

A majority of the great oil wells are about ten miles from Baku, and a
dozen pipe-lines convey the petroleum from them to Black Town, a suburb
of Baku, where it is stored and refined. From one well alone the
escaping oil would have brought more than five million dollars had it
been saved.

Seemingly the crust of the earth for hundreds of miles around acts like