fires which then blazed, and still blaze, in the fissures of the
mountain heights overlooking the Caspian Sea. Those records appertain
to a period at least 600 years before the birth of Christ; but the Magi
must have lived and worshiped long anterior to that time.

Zoroaster, reputed founder of the Parsee sect, is placed contemporary
with the prophet Daniel, from 2,500 to 600 B.C.; and, although Daniel
has been doubted, and Zoroaster may never have seen the light, the
fissures of the Caucasus have been flaming since the earliest authentic
records.

The Parsees (Persians) did not originally worship fire. They believed
in two great powers--the Spirit of Light, or Good, and the Spirit of
Darkness, or Evil. Subsequent to Zoroaster, when the Persian empire rose
to its greatest power and importance, overspreading the west to the
shores of the Caspian and beyond, the tribes of the Caucasus suffered
political subjugation; but the creed of the Magi, founded upon the
eternal flame-altars of the mountains, proved sufficiently vigorous to
transform the Parseeism of the conquerors to the fire worship of the
conquered.

About the beginning of the seventh century of the Christian era, the
Grecian Emperor Heraclius overturned the fire altars of the Magi at
Baku, the chief city on the Caspian, but the fire worshipers were not
expelled from the Caucasus until the Mohammedans subjugated the Persian
Empire, when they were driven into the Rangoon, on the Irrawaddy, in
India, one of the most noted petroleum producing districts of the world.

Petroleum and natural gas are so intimately related that one would
hardly dare to say whether the gas proceeds from petroleum or the