"The machinery ufed in draw ing up the rubbish, and afterwards the oil from the well, is an axle croffing the centre of the well, reiting on two rude-forked ftaunchions, with a revolving barrel on its centre, like the nave of a wheel, in which is a score for receiving the draw rope; the bucket is of wicker-work, covered with dammer; and the labour of the drawers, in general three men, is facilitated by the descent of the inclined plane, as water is drawn from deep wells in the interior of Hindoftan. "To receive the oil, one man is ftationed at the brink of the well, who empties the bucket into a channel made on the furface of the earth leading to a funk jar, from whence it is laded into fmaller ones, and immediately carried down to the river, either by coolies or on hackeries. "When a well grows dry, they deepen it. They fay none are abandoned for barrenness. Even the death of a miner, from mephitic air, does not deter others from perfifting in deepening them when dry. Two days before my arrival, a man was fuffocated in one of the wells, yet they afterwards renewed their attempts, without further accident. I recommended their trying the air with a candle, &c. but feemingly with little effect. "The oil is drawn pure from the wells, in the liquid ftate as used, without variation, but in the cold feafon it congeals in the open air, and always loofes fomething of its fluidity; the temperature of the wells preferving it in a liquid ftate fit to be drawn. A man who was lowered into a well of 110 cubits, in my presence, and immediately drawn up, perfpired copioufly at every pore; unfortunately I had no other means of trying the 1800. temperature. The oil is of a dingy green and odorous; it is used for lamps, and boiled with a little dammer (a refin of the country), for paying the timbers of houfes, and the bottoms of boats, &c. which it preferves from decay and vermin; its medicinal properties known to the natives is as a lotion in cutaneous eruptions, and as an embrocation in bruifes and rheumatic affections. "The miners pofitively affured me no water ever percolates through the earth into the wells, as has been fuppofed; the rains in this part of the country are feldom heavy, and during this feason a roof of thatch is thrown over the wells, the water that falls foon runs off to the river, and what penetrates into the earth is effectually prevented from defcending to any great depth by the increafing hardnefs of the oleagenous argill and fchift; this will readily be admitted when it is known that the coal mines at Whitby are worked below the harbour, and the roof of the galleries not more than fifty feet from the bed of the fea; the deficiency of rain in this tract may be owing to the high range of mountains to the weftward, which range parallel to the river, and arreft the clouds in their paffage, as is the cafe on the eaftern fide of the peninfula of India. "Solicitous to obtain accurate information on a fubject fo interefting as this natural fource of wealth, I had all the principal proprietors affembled on board my boat, and collected from them the following particulars: the foregoing I learned at the wells from the miners and others. "I endeavoured to guard againft exaggeration, as well as to obviate the caution and referve which merK cantile cantile men in all countries think it neceffary to obferve, when minutely queftioned on fubjects affecting their interefts, and I have reafon to hope my information is "not very diftant from the truth. "The property of thefe wells is in the owners of the foil, natives of the country, and defcends to the heirs general as a kind of entailed hereditament, with which it is faid government never interferes, and which no diftrefs will induce them to alienate. One family perhaps will poffefs four or five wells; I heard of none who had more; the generality have lefs; they are funk by, and wrought for, the proprietors; the cost of finking a new well is 2000 tecals flowered filver of the country, or 2500 ficca rupees; and the annual average net profit 1000 tecals or 1250 ficca rupees. "The contract price with the miners for finking a well is as follows: for the firft forty cubits they have forty tecals, for the next forty cubits three hundred tecals, and beyond thefe eighty cubits to the oil they have from thirty to fifty tecals per cubit, according to the depth (the Burmha cubit is nineteen inches English); taking the mean rate of forty tecals per cubit, and one hundred cubits as the general depth at which they come to oil, the remaining twenty cubits will coft 800 tecals, or the whole of the miner's wages for finking the fhaft 1140 tecals; a well of a 100 cubits will require 950 caffia staves, which, at five tecais per hundred, will coft 47% tecals. Portage and workmanship, in fitting them, may amount to 100 tecals more; the levelling the hill for the crown of the well, and making the draw road, &c. according to the common rate of labour in the country, will coft about 200 tecals; ropes, &c, and provifions for the workmen, which are fupplied by the proprietor when making a new well; expences of propitiatory facrifices, and perhaps a figniorage fine to government for permiffion to fink a new well, confume the remaining 512 tecals; in deepening an old well they make the best bargain in their power with the miners, who rate their demand per cubit according to its depth and danger from the heats or mephitic air. "The amount, produce, and wages of the labourers who draw the oil, as ftated to me, I fufpect was exaggerated or erroneous from misinterpretation on both fides. "The average produce of each well, per diem, they faid, was 500 vifs, or 1825lbs. avoirdupois, and that the labourers earned upwards of eight tecals each per month; but I apprehend this was not meant as the average produce or wages for every day or month throughout the year, as muft appear from a further examination of the subject: where facts are dubious, we must, endeavour to obtain truth from internal evidence. Each well is worked by four men, and their wages is regulated by the average produce of fix days labour, of which they have one fixth, or its value at the rate of one and a quarter tecals per hundred vifs, the price of the oil at the wells; the proprietor has an option of paying their fixth in oil, but I understand he pays the value in money; and if fo, I think this is as fair a mode of regulating the wages of labour as any where practifed; for in proportion as the labourer works he benefits, and gains only as he bene fits his employer. He can only do injury by over-working himself, which is not likely to happen to an Indian; no provifions are al lowed lowed the oil drawers, but the proprietor fupplies the ropes, &c.; and laftly the king's duty is a tenth of the produce. "Now fuppofing a well to yield 500 vifs per diem throughout the year, deducting one fixth for the labourers, and one tenth for the king, there will remain for the proprietor,rejecting fractions, 136, 876 vifs, which, at 1 tecals, the value at the wells, is equal to 1710 tecals per annum. From this fum there is to be deducted only a trifle for draw ropes, &c. for I could not learn that there was any further duties or expence to be charged on the produce; but the merchants fay they gain only a neat 1000 tecals per annum for each well; and, as we advance, we fhall have reafon to think they have given the maximum rather than the minimum of their profits; hence, therefore, we may infer, that the grofs amount produce per annum is not 182,500 vifs. "Further, the four labourers' fhare, or one-fixth, deducting the king's tythe, will be 2250 vifs per month of thirty days, or in money at the above price twenty-eight tecals fifty avas, or feven tecals twelve avas each man per month'; but the wages of a common labour er in this part of the country, as the fame perfons informed me, is only five tecals per month when hired from day to day; they alfo admitted that the labour of the oil drawers was not harder than that of common labourers, and the employment no ways obnoxious to health. To me the fmell of the oil was fragrant and grateful; and on being more indirectly queftioned (for on this part of the fubject, perhaps owing to the minutenefs of my inquiries, I obferved moft referve), they allowed that their gain was not much greater than the common labourers of the country; nor is it reasonable to expect it fhould, for as there is no mystery in drawing of oil, no particular hardships endured, or rifk of health, no compulfion or prevention pretended, and as it is the intereft of the proprietors to get their work done at the cheapest rate, of course the numbers that would flock to fo regular and profitable an employment would foon lower the rate of hire nearly at leaft to the common, wages of the country; befides I obferved no appearance of affluence amongst the labourers, they were meanly lodged and clad, and fed coarfely, not on rice, which in the upper provinces is an article of luxury, but on dry grains and indi genous roots of the nature of cafada, collected in the waftes by their women and children: further, it is not reafonable to fuppofe that thefe labourers worked conftantly, nature always requires a refpite, and will be obeyed, however much the defire of gain may ftimulate, and this caufe muft more particu larly operate in warm climates to produce what we often improperly call indolence. Even the rigid Cato emphatically fays, that the man who has not time to be idle is a flave. A due confideration of this phyfical and moral neceffity ought perhaps to vindicate religious legiflators from the reproaches too liberally beftowed on them for fan&tioning relaxation: be that as it may, I think it is fufficiently apparent that the article of wages is alfo exaggerated, and that 500 vifs must only be confidered as the amount produce of working days, and not an average for every day in the year. The labour of the miners, as I have obferved above, is altogether diftinct from the oil drawers, K 2 and and their pay proportioned to the hardships and risks they endure. "Affuming therefore as data the acknowledged profit of 1000 tecals per annum for each well, which we can hardly fuppofe exaggerated, as it would expofe the proprietors to an additional tax, and the common wages of precarious employment in the country, that is one month with another, including holy-days the year round, four and a quarter tecals per month as the pay of the oil drawers, which includes the two extremes of the question, it will make the average produce of each well per diem 300 vifs or 109,500 vifs per annum, equal to 399,675 lbs. avoirdupois, or tons 178,955 lbs. or in liquid measure 793 hogsheads of fixty-three gallons each; and as there are 520 wells regif tered by government, the grofs amount produce of the whole per annum will be 56,940,000 vifs or 92,781 tons 1560 lbs. or 412,360 hogfheads, worth at the wells, at one and a quarter tecals per hundred vifs, 711,750 tecals or 889, 737 ficca rupees. "From the wells, the oil is carried in small jars, by cooleys, or on carts, to the river; where it is delivered to the merchant exporter at two tecals per hundred vifs, the value being enhanced three-eighths by the expence and risk of portage; therefore the grofs value or profit to the country of the whole, deducting five per cent for waftage, may be stated at 1,081,860 tecals, or 1,362,325 ficca rupees per annum, yielding a direct revenue to the king of 136,232 ficca rupees per annum, and perhaps thrice as much more before it reaches the confumer; befides the benefit the whole country muft derive from the productive industry called into action by the conftant employ ment of fo large a capital on fo gruff an article. There were between feventy and eighty boats, average burthen fixty tons each, loading oil at the feveral wharfs, and others conftantly coming and going while I was there. A number of boats and men alfo find conftant employment in providing the pots, &c. for the oil, and the extent of this fingle branch of internal commerce (for almoft the whole is confumed in the country) will ferve to give fome infight into the internal commerce and refources of the country. "At the wells the price of the oil is feven annas feven pies per 1 12 lbs. avoirdupois; at the port of Ranghong it is fold at the average rate of three ficca rupees three annas and fix pies per cwt. or per hogheads of fixty-three gallons, weighing 504lbs. fourteen rupees feven annas nine pies, exclufive of the cafk, or per Bengal buzar maund two rupees five annas eight pies, whereas the muftard feed and other vegetable oils fell at Ranghong at eleven rupees per buzar maund. "To conclude, this oil is a genuine petroleum, poffeffing all the properties of coal tar, being in fact the felf fame thing; the only difference is, that nature elaborates in the bowels of the earth that for the Burmhas for which European nations are obliged to the ingenuity of lord Dundonald." Oa On the POISON of SERPENTS, by W. BOAG, Efq. [From the fanie Work.] Propofe, in this paper, to make fome inquiry into the nature of the poifon of the ferpent, and to afcertain, as far as I am able, the most fuccefsful method of removing the disease it produces. "Whether the principles I fhall endeavour to establish will be admitted as fatisfactory, or fanctioned by future and more extenfive experience, I cannot pretend to determine; but the difcuffion cannot be altogether destitute of utility in this climate, where ferpents are much more numerous, and much more dangerous than in Europe. "I fhall begin by obferving, that by far the greatest number of ferpents are not venomous. In the 13th edition of the Syftema Naturæ, published by profeffor Gmelin, we find a lift of two hundred and nineteen different kinds of fnakes; and Linnæus informs us, that about one in ten only are poifonous; we also know it to be true, that many fnakes which poffefs a poisonous quality are not mortal to man, though they may be deftructive to smaller animals. "It would be a defirable thing to be able to ascertain, from the appearance of a fnake, whether it be venomous or not; but these animals fo nearly resemble one another, that it is impoffible, without great experience, to diftinguish them. The fkin on the belly and tail of ferpents is compofed of fcales, which vary, in number and arrangement, in different ferpents. Upon this circumftance Linnæus has founded his divifion of the ferpent tribe into fix diftinct genera. But this divifion, however useful it may be to the naturalift, is of little ufe to the phyfician, who is defirous of diftinguishing the harmless from the venomous ferpent: the colour, which is moft commonly attended to, is a very fallacious mark, for it commonly changes with age: a ferpent with a large head is generally fufpected to be venomous; but the mark which is chiefly to be depended on is the large canine teeth, or fangs, fixed in the upper jaw, which are commonly two in number, but fometimes more. These teeth are covered with a membranous fheath, and are crooked, moveable, and hollow, to give paffage to the venom, which they receive from a small reservoir, that runs along the palate of the mouth, and paffes through the body of each fang. This refervoir contains but a very fmall quantity of venom, which is forced out of it when the animal attempts to bite, by a strong mufcle fixed to the upper jaw, and that covers it nearly through the whole of its length. This is the means of defence given to ferpents: it has been well obferved by Linnæus, that if nature has thrown them naked on the ground, deftitute of limbs, and expofed to every injury, he has in return fupplied them with a deadly poifon, the most terrible of all wea pons, and which has made them, from the earlieft ages, to be regarded as objects of horror, or of religious veneration, by the human 1 |