“Mr. Arthur Lessner, also a Swede, is general manager. The company is a stock concern, organized under the Russian laws, and its shares are dealt regularly in on all the stock exchanges of Europe.
“The specific gravity of the Baku oil is much higher than that of the American oil,” continued Mr. Norman. “It has a naphtha basis, while the American oil has a paraffine basis. This oil is more like that of California. It is better for fuel than for illuminating purposes and is used for steaming on the railways and steamships in this part of the empire.
“The distinctive feature of the Nobel refineries is a continuous system of distillation; that is, a series of stills from which the various properties of the oil are extracted as the crude raw material is passed from one to another, each having a higher temperature than the last.
“There are eighteen pipe lines between the wells and the works,” said Mr. Norman, “which were built by the Nobels about thirty years ago. Until then the oil was carried on the backs of camels and in carts. The common labour is performed by Persians, who are paid from thirty to thirty-five cents a day (American money), and the skilled labour is Armenian, which is paid from sixty to seventy-five cents a day. The Nobel Company has provided neat and comfortable tenement houses for its employés at the White City, with clubhouses, hospitals and other humane provisions.”
Mr. Norman says the industry is not prosperous; that the Standard Oil Company is driving the Baku product out of Europe and that Russia is now practically the only market the Baku manufacturers are able to control.
A new oil field has been found within the last year or so near the town of Maikop, in the northern foothills of the Caucasus range of mountains, and there has been a good deal of excitement in consequence. Very little is known about conditions there, however, and the condition of the market, because of the aggressive policy of the Standard Oil Company, is not encouraging for its developement. The Standard Company, everybody admits, can produce a better quality of refined petroleum as well as lubricating oil and other by-products, and sell them at a less price in every market in the world, except the Russian Empire, which is protected by a prohibitory tariff, than the Baku refiners.
CHAPTER XI
DAGHESTAN, AND ITS ANCIENT PEOPLES
Daghestan is a province of Russia which lies immediately north of the Caucasus Mountains, and for 300 miles or more along the west shore of the Caspian Sea. It is the tip end of Europe. The Caucasus range is the boundary between the two continents, and beyond it is the hinterland. It is the wall of separation between the Christian and the Mohammedan worlds. Daghestan is also the limit of the region of natural moisture. It is a well-watered country, with hundreds of rivers and creeks, which rise in the snow-clad mountains and flow into the Caspian. Beyond Daghestan it is necessary to irrigate the soil by artificial means to raise any kind of crops. West of Daghestan are forests, fields of clover and grain, and pastures that are always green. East of its boundaries lies a desert which stretches for thousands of miles across the parched areas of Asia. There is no green thing of natural growth until the borders of China are reached.
Daghestan has always been the prey of rival powers. It has been plundered and ravaged in turn by all the Asiatic hordes. Its soil has been fertilized by the blood of Persians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Huns, Avars, Slavs, Mongols, Tartars, Turks. The “Golden Horde” swept over it once and again in the great tidal wave of war that lit up the two continents during the Middle Ages. It has been a battle-ground for twenty centuries, and the war-chargers of fifty armies have fattened upon its pastures.