Repeatedly named in the Bible, Let none its antiquity libel Or seek to explain it away. It garnish’d Methuselah’s table, Was used by the builders of Babel And pilgrims from distant Cathay; When Pharaoh and Moses were chummy It help’d preserve many a mummy, Still dreadfully life-like and gummy, In Egypt’s stone-tombs from decay! At Baku Jove’s thunderbolts fir’d it, Devout Zoroaster admir’d it As Deity symbol’d in flame; Parsees from the realms of Darius, Unweariedly earnest and pious, Adoring and worshipping came. It cur’d Noah’s Ham of trichina, Greas’d babies and pig-tails in China, Heal’d Arabs from far-off Medina— The blind and the halt and the lame! Herodotus saw it at Zante, It blazed in the visions of Dante And pyres of supine Hindostan; The tropics and zones have rich fountains, It bubbles ’mid snow cover’d mountains And flows in the pits of Japan. Confin’d to no country or nation, A blessing to God’s whole creation For light, heat and prime lubrication, All hail to this grand gift to man! [Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS AT LOURAKHANEL, NEAR BAKU.] [Illustration: BURNING OF OIL IN THE BOGADOFF SHIPPING-YARD, RUSSIA.] [Illustration: VIEW OF WELLS AT BAKANY, IN THE RUSSIAN OIL-FIELD.] II. A GLIMMER IN THE WEST. NUMEROUS INDICATIONS OF OIL ON THIS CONTINENT—LAKE OF ASPHALTUM—PETROLEUM SPRINGS IN NEW YORK AND PENNSYLVANIA—HOW HISTORY IS MANUFACTURED—PIONEERS DIPPING AND UTILIZING THE PRECIOUS FLUID—TOMBSTONE LITERATURE—PATHETIC EPISODE—SINGULAR STRIKE—GEOLOGY TRIES TO EXPLAIN A KNOTTY POINT. ---------- “Thou who wouldst see where dawned the light at last must westward go.”—_Edwin Arnold._ “America is the Lord’s darling.”—_Dr. Talmage._ “Thee, hid the bowering vales amidst, I call.”—_Euripides._ “A Mercury is not to be carved out of every wood.”—_Latin Proverb._ “Never no duck wasn’t hatched by a drake.”—_Hall Caine._ “Near the Niagara is an oil-spring known to the Indians.”—_De la Roche D’Allion, A. D. 1629._ “There is a fountain at the head of the Ohio, the water of which is like oil, has a taste of iron and seems to appease pain.”—_Captain de Joncaire, A. D. 1721._ “It is light bottled up for tens-of-thousands of years—light absorbed by plants and vegetables. * * * And now, after being buried long ages, that latent light is again brought forth and made to work for human purposes.”—_Stephenson._