Recent events in the conduct of affairs in Russia do not suggest that great improvements may be expected in the near future, either in regard to the attitude of the Government toward the Russian petroleum industry, or to the attitude of the workers to those responsible for oil-field operations. Even before the European War, the Russian petroleum industry was rather on the decline. The only hope that can be expressed at this juncture is that when Russia possesses a stable government, and the country enters upon a period of peaceful progress, the Mining Department will take care that Russia takes its proper position as one of the most important oil-producing countries in the world. But before this comes about, there will have to be a complete revision of the Government’s policy respecting oil royalties. The destruction, however, wrought in Baku towards the end of 1918 will take several years to make good. [Illustration: ROUMANIA: A FEW OF THE HAND DUG WELLS IN BUSTENARI] ROUMANIA.--During comparatively recent time, Roumania has come prominently forward as one of the large petroleum-producing countries of the world, and its yearly output of crude oil, according to latest returns, is about 11,000,000 barrels, or, say, 1,600,000 tons. The production of petroleum in the country, however, has been proceeding for centuries, for, in the seventeenth century, the peasants were in the habit of digging wells by hand and selling the crude oil for medicinal purposes, the greasing of cart-wheels, as well as for lighting. There are many places in Roumania which are named from petroleum, a fact which points to the existence of the industry long before the present-day methods of extraction were thought of. Several hundreds of these hand-dug wells still exist round the fringe of the Transylvanian and Carpathian Alps, and though many of them have now fallen into decay, there are numerous others from which a payable quantity of petroleum is extracted by primitive methods.