306 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 39 



ing oil in commercial quantity was first produced from shale in 

 France in 1838. The refining of oil at the Biddings Colliery in 

 Derbyshire was begun in 1848 by James Young, and he later obtained 

 oil from coal and bituminous shales. He founded in 1851 the Scotch 

 industry for the extraction of oil and paraffin from boghead coal. 

 His process for obtaining illuminating oil was rewarded with com- 

 mercial success, and during the next 10 years its use expanded rapidly 

 in Great Britian and was introduced into the United States. Ameri- 

 can coals were treated in plants in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, 

 Kentucky, and OMo. This rising industry was soon replaced by the 

 petroleum industry. 



During the first half of the nineteenth century increasing quantities 

 of crude petroleum, known as rock oil, were obtained from seepages 

 and from wells drilled for salt brines in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Ken- 

 tucky, and West Virginia, but very little of it was marketed. Be- 

 tween 1850 and 1855 petroleum from a salt well at Tarentum, Pa., 

 was refined in Pittsburgh and sold for lamp use. Also by 1850 some 

 oil from the locality was bottled and sold by druggists; and about 

 1855 the oil was refined by methods used for the recovery of oil 

 from coal. 



The salt wells in Pennsylvania and the nearby States had been 

 drilled with equipment designed for the purpose. This equipment, 

 which embodied the fundamental features of the modem standard 

 cable drill rig, was developed in 1806-8 in the Kanawha Valley, W. 

 Va. Accordingly, salt well drillers and their equipment were em- 

 ployed for the drilling in 1859 of the Drake well near Titusville, Pa., 

 in which it was hoped that there would be obtained a larger supply 

 of oil than that afforded by the oil springs of the locality. The 

 Drake well, on reaching a depth of 691/^ feet, discovered oil and its 

 initial daily output was 25 barrels. This was America's first commer- 

 cial oil well. 



RELATION OF GEOLOGY TO PETROLEUM INDUSTRY 



The phenomenal growth of the petroleum industry in the United 

 States has been aided greatly by engineering and science. In the 

 words of W. C. Teagle, formerly President of the Standard Oil Co. 

 of New Jersey, "The operation of the world's oil industry is now very 

 largely in the hands of technical experts, geologists, physicists, chem- 

 ists, and engineers. This change in the complexion of the responsible 

 operating personnel has occurred more rapidly, perhaps, than in any 

 othei- field of comparable importance" (18).^ On the same subject 

 Lord Cadman, head of many British petroleum companies and past 



■ Numbers in parentheses refer to list at end of article. 



