aking of fire. The contrivances for obtaining fire are many
and curious in savage life, while, once attained, this art seems to
have not only formed a constant accompaniment but probably also a
determining cause in the evolution of civilization. Wood, the fat of
animals, and even the oils expressed from plants, probably all became
known to man as convenient sources of fuel in prehistoric times. From
the incineration of wood to the use of peat and coal would prove an
easy stage in the advance toward present day practices, and with the
attainment of coal as a fuel the first great era in man's fire-making
habits may be said to end.

Beyond the coal stage, however, lies the more or less distinctively
modern one of the utilization of gas and oil for fuel. The existence
of great natural centers, or underground stores, of gas and oil is
probably no new fact. We read in the histories of classic chroniclers
of the blazing gases which were wont to issue from the earth, and to
inspire feelings of superstitious awe in the minds of beholders. Only
within a few years, however, have geologists been able to tell us much
or anything regarding these reservoirs of natural fuel which have
become famous in America and in the Russian province of Baku.

For example, it is now known that three products--gas, oil, and salt
or brine--lie within natural receptacles formed by the rock strata in
the order of their weight. This law, as has well been said, forms the
foundation of all successful boring experiments, and the search for
natural fuel, therefore, becomes as easy and as reliable a duty as
that for artesian water or for coal. The great oil fever of the West
was attended at first, as Professor M'Gee tells us, with much waste of
the product. Wells were sunk everywhere, and the oil overflowed the
land, tainting the rivers, poisoning the air, and often driving out
the prospectors from the field of discovery. In Baku accidents and
catastrophes have, similarly, been of frequent occurrence. We read of
petroleum flowing from the ground in jets 200 feet high, and as thick
as a man's body; we learn how it swept away the huge cranes and other
machinery, and how, as it flowed away from the orifices, its course
was marked by the formation of rivers of oil many miles in length.

In America the pressure of rock gas has burst open stills weighing
over a ton, and has rushed through huge iron tanks and split open the
pipes wherewith it was sought to control