PETROLEUM STRATA

Southland Times, Issue 21263, 9 December 1930, Page 5

PETROLEUM STRATA

DISCOVERY IN FORMOSA. (United Press Assn. —By Telegraph—Copyright.) (Rec. 7.40 p.m.) Tokio, December 8. Engineers report the discovery in a hitherto unexplored region of Formosa of widely extensive petroleum strata exceeding in richness and outrivalling the American fields. Formosa is an island belonging to Japan in the China Sea. It is traversed by several ranges of slaty and schistose mountains, and a volcanic chain with active and extinct cones is found in the north. Along the west coast stretches a broad alluvial plain. There are only two streams, one in North Taiwan and the other in South Taiwan, that: are serviceable for navigation, and both are known as Tamsui-kei (fresh water rivers). The soil of the lower tracts and the more gentle slopes of the mountains is extremely fertile and well cultivated, and the climate is salubrious. There are vast deposits of coal, and it is in great part of good quality, and largely worked in the region between Kehing and Tamsui. The main industries are the cultivation of tea and sugar cane and the extraction of camphor and sulphur. The population consists of a number of clans and tribes supposed to be of Malayan stock, of an aboriginal people whose ethnic affinities have not been established, and of descendants of Chinese settlers. The Dutch exercised sovereignty over portion of Formosa during the seventeenth century. The island was ceded by China to Japan in 1895.