WD540(18)

‘The Oil Wells, Yé-nan-gyoung.’

THESE interesting objects are situated at about two miles and-a-half from the town. The road which led to them was marked by nature’s wildest and strangest aspect. High hills, split as it were by some mighty convulsion of nature, resembling a stony avalanche — or one of the gigantic ‘rock cuttings’ for the railway in Europe, margined its early part. The path then continued to wind between a succession of hills and high broken banks, and over a sandy rugged soil, dotted here and there with rocky substances and innumerable specimens of petrified wood; diverging at length amongst a number of irregular sandstone hills, forming the steps of an extensive plateau of high land, to which other and distant and yet more elevated hills appeared also to belong. Here was found the principal group of Oil Wells, whilst the locality represented in the drawing embraced what is termed the lower or smaller group. The character and appearance of the places are, however, declared to be identical.

The Wells, three or four of which may be observed in the drawing, are distributed at irregular intervals. They are said to be about one hundred in number, and to cover a space of probably half a square mile. (‘See Captain Yule’s Report, page 21 to 30’). Their depths vary from about 150 to 250 feet. The one nearest to the foreground in the drawing, measured by the rope with which the oil bucket was raised, proved to be 100 cubits, or 240 feet. The oil is drawn up by a bucket as water from an ordinary well. The rope passes over a wheel or pulley, and on the bucket descending to the bottom, the attendant labourer passes the end of the rope over his shoulder, and running down the side of the-ravine to the requisite distance, draws the full bucket to the mouth of the well, near which carts, as seen in the sketch, with earthen pots prepared for its reception, are in waiting to carry it away to the town. These wells are said to be exhausted in, probably, ten years, but can. be renewed by further digging. The price of the oil has now risen to double its former value.