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194
BIRMAH.
ness of the oleaginous strata.* The property of these
wells is in the owners of the soil, and descends as a
sort of entailed hereditament, with which, it is said,
the government never interferes, and which no dis-
tress will induce them to alienate. One family generally
possesses as many as four or five wells; seldom
more. A tenth of the produce goes to the king, and
one-sixth to the labourers, either in oil or in money.
The average, produce of each well per diem, Captain
Cox estimates at 300 viss, or 109,500 viss per annum,
equal to 173 tons 9551bs, or, in liquid measure, 793
hogsheads of sixty-three gallons each. And as there
are 520 wells registered by government, the total produce
per annum is 412,360 hogsheads; worth, at the
wells, 711,750 tecals.-^ Between seventy and eighty
boats, of an average burthen of sixty tons, are constantly
employed in this branch of commerce.
Colonel Symes picked up near this town, several
lumps of petrified wood, in which the grain was clearly
discernible.
" It was hard, silicious, and seemed com-
posed of different lamina. The natives said, that the
petrifying quality of the earth at this place was such,
that leaves of trees shaken off by the wind, were not
unfrequently changed into stone before they could be
decayed by time." This whole tract seems to invite
the researches of the geologist.
After passing Pengkioum, where a small river falls
into the Irrawaddy, the country resumes its verdant ap-
* The coal mines of Whitby are worked below the harbour, and
the roof of the galleries is not more than fifty feet from the bed of
the sea.
t At the wells, it is worth & tecals per 100 viss. It is delivered
to the exporter at the river, at two tecals per 100 visa, the value
being enhanced three-eighths by the portage. At Rangoon, it
is sold at the rate of three sicca-rupees, three anas, and six pice
per 112 Ib.