64 THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 



PETROLEUM. 



By Walter Regnault, C. U. C. P., 1910. 

 A Short Account of Its History, Products and Uses. 



Petroleum has been known practically from the earliest times. It 

 was first mentioned by Herodotus about 300 B. C. and later by 

 Pliny. In fact the word itself is derived from two Latin words, 

 namely, petra — the rock and oleum — oil, thus indicating that this 

 oil was obtained from cavities in rocks. Petroleum was also known 

 to the Chinese, to the Persians and to the Arabians, but these people 

 did not make much use of it. In 1814 a company was formed to 

 bore brine wells in Washington County, Ohio. To their dismay 

 they found that their salt was contaminated with petroleum. The 

 same misfortune befell another company in 1819 while boring for 

 brine in Wayne County, Kentucky, and ten years later the same 

 accident occurred in Cumberland County, Kentucky. Little did 

 they think how soon these apparent misfortunes would be consid- 

 ered most lucky occurrences. A few years later, that is, between 

 1850 and i860, plants were built throughout the United States for 

 the production of the so-called coal oil. This was obtained by the 

 destructive distillation of some bituminous scheel, the substances 

 then being used being albertite, from Nova Scotia, grahamite from 

 Australia and Breckenridge coal from Kentucky. This coal oil soon 

 replaced sperm oil for illuminating purposes, as it was very much 

 cheaper. 



For some years previous to this, however, the Seneca Indians of 

 New York had been selling a kind of oil as a liniment, which they 

 obtained from a creek in western Pennsylvania, where the city of 

 Titusville now stands. The oil floated on the water and was col- 

 lected by spreading blankets over the water to absorb the oil and 

 then expressing these. On the labels of these liniment bottles was 

 the picture of a derrick. 



These two facts soon led to great results, for it occurred to a 

 party of Yankees that this oil might have properties similar to that 

 of coal oil. They consequently took a sample of it to Professor B. 

 Silliman, Jr., of Yale University, who analyzed the oil and found it 

 to have almost the same composition as coal oil. Upon the strength 

 of this report a company was organized in New Haven and a cer- 

 tain Colonel E. L. Drake was sent out to Oil Creek, Pennsylvania, 



