Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History

Travel, Atlases, Maps and Natural History

Qatar and the Persian Gulf | Iraq Petroleum Company Limited Handbook, 1948

Lot Closed

May 13, 03:51 PM GMT

Estimate

500 - 700 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Qatar and the Persian Gulf--Iraq Petroleum Company Limited


Handbook of the territories which form the theatre of operations of the Iraq Petroleum Company and its associated companies. London, 1948


FIRST EDITION, 8vo (216 x 135mm.), portrait, 13 plates printed recto and verso, folding map of “Middle East Oil Concessions”, 5 maps in text, original cloth, spine very slightly rubbed


RARE. With descriptions and views of Qatar.


Chapter IV describes the Persian Gulf (pp.60-77), including sections on the Trucial coast and Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait. Chapter III describes Arabia. Chapter I, on “The companies and their operations”, describes the infancy of oil production in Qatar up to 1948, and the supporting infrastructure being put in place (p.15). Two of the plates are “Early days in Qatar” and “Qatar from the air”.


“The building of necessary roads, jetties, dwellings, offices, workshops, stores and the like [in Qatar] has advanced simultaneously with drilling. A new producing well was completed in January, 1948, another in May, and others are in hand”. However, the Handbook goes on to observe that “... the population is scanty and wretchedly poor. The Company’s present operations supply almost the sole source of wealth in the territory. Dohah [sic] is the Shaikh’s capital and the only considerable village”.

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