Phe Soerebayne Courer to the failure which ly all attempt to here for petrol lands India, In Java, for calls attention trended almost eum i in Nether-ions of guilders have Leen spent i ly unsuccessful efforts to yet at the petroleum, traces of which abound inthe soil there, Yet horemasters from Ameriex and Canada hid been engaged at high saluvies, and had expensive machinery plied at their dispowl to work with for months at a A comparison hetiween the results, reached by thes fied foreign boremasinexperienced is said to show favourably for Many say that this is because jeans had been accustomed to to others kinds of ground, and because they bored ton much at random:
Others affirm that the re ies in the Americans being unwilling to succeed. It is i ed that oil pipes break from ug been secretly manipulated wich some chemical which renders the iron brittle, Tr is further alleged that hing uncommon for an oil pri found by some unlucky chance, ta he set on fire on purpose, and for' the fire to be allowed to go on under the tence that quenching it is impructiew Recently one such" spring burned on for thirty-two days at 9 Toss of 40,000 barrels of oil.
The pretence that putting out the fire was impossible only held out till the owner came to the spot and extinguished the flames in two The conclusion come to is that the tioned. result, from purposely. bad. work ailures in petroleum-boring above men-
paid for by those interested in frustrating the efforts to develop the petroleum wealth of Netherlands India. 'The inference—that all this is the handiwork of the powerfal American petroleum ring, cannot admittedly be proved. But that' journal counsels petroleum cessionaries to think well before en: American, Canadian, or other foreign boremiasters.—Struits Times.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.