A SEA OF HRE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2404, 29 March 1900, Page 61

A SEA OF HRE.

B? a Bankek.

Long before the general introduction of petroleum as an illuminating medium, the oil was locally used on the shores of the Caspian Sea for that purpose, but as mepns of transport were at that time scarce and deficient m the .Russian Empire, an incalculable quantity of the valuable product was wasted. Ihe oil was so plentiful that it was only nece&sary to bore a few feet into the ground, and a stream of the oil shot up into the air with great force. On occasions of general festivity it is related that the inhabitants caused streams of the liqiiid to flow into the sea, until the entire surface for miles around was completely covered with a thick laser of oil, which was then set on fire at various places, until the ocean, almost ps far as the horizon, was one blazing sea of file. The spectacle must, even on a still night, have been extraordinary and mr.gaincent, but if stormy and tempestuous to that degree that the troubled waters were not stilled by the onflow, the scene must have been weird and terrible. Great tongues of fire flash high in air, and, driven hither and thither by the tempest, kindle the curling billows into flame, these, now wrapt in fiery wreaths, rolling onwards, crowned with a sinning crest of luminous foam which is scattered to the winds in gems of sparkling fire, while the furiouslysurging, tempest-tossed breakers, all aglow, and flashing with evei-aiigmcntmg fury, at length arc hurled against the rocky cliffs, and the liquid fire and mingled water is flung back in a cataract of flame into the surging watery furnaoe.

Perhaps the wonderful lake of pitch in Trmidad was originally caused by a similar though natural outflow of some inflammable liquid. The aspect of this black, wavelesg sea of bitumen is weird and uncanny. Its shores, instead of being la\ sd by sparkling crystal water, are but the bounds of a lurid, sullen, semiliquid, which appears as if struck dead while in the act of flowing up the beach. Its billows, instead of being full of life, dancing and glittering, are biit ridges of lifeless rollers, inanimate and inert; while instead of the ozone-laden life-giving breeze, a dark, heavy asphalt-charged atmosphere, saturated with a combination of decayed wood mingled with Xaitch snd bitumen, hangs oppressively over the place. Though the thought is suggested that its shores would form a "fit abode for witches and sorcerers, yet, unlike the dismal Dead Sea, whose dreary shores are shunned by nearly all living creatures, here innumerable birds of gorgeous plumage disport themselves, from the tiny indesoently-clc-thed humming bird flitting from frond to frond of graceful palm or tree fern, to the great clumsy white xoelican, which sits m rows digesting its heavy meal of king fish or ssa lamprey, sapiently watching the impassive and immovable surface of the lake.

lii the Island of Java is a somewhat similar lake, which rejoices in the not paiticularly elegant name of "Bhiddugs"; but in place of pitch the lake is stated to be full of boiling mud, which is in a state of constant ebullition.

Pliny, too, relates that at Dordona was an inflammable lake, which, if set on fire, would burn furiously for some time. This is confiimed by Lucretius, who writes: • the buoyant torch Kindles immediate fire across its pool.

But in one special and glorious part of the great imiverse there is another mysterious lake, described as "a sea of glass mingled with five," a dazzling plateau of coruscating rays of fiery glory, around which stand those v/ho while Here below have steadfastly refused to bow dowa to the great heiesy which the evangelist foretold was to creep so insidiously into the Christian church, enforcing doctrines which have no place in the Holy Scriptures, and claiming Divme powers which only God possesses. Well may those who stand there in that supernal glory sing so joyously their praises to Hini who lias preserved them from its thraldom, and kept them m the true faith.