GAS AND OIL 



C n H2n + 2. By breaking away those two extra hydrogens, 

 he gets another important family of hydrocarbons, the 

 oleofins, which may be expressed by the symbol CJHbn. 

 Ethylene, propylene, and butylene are the three lowest 

 members of this group, which is not commonly found 

 in crude oil as it comes from the earth, and the last of 

 these is a very important ingredient of synthetic rubber. 



In the horse-and-buggy days, when petroleum refin- 

 ing was simple distillation, the product was kerosene, 

 with lubricating oils as a sideline. The ten per cent of 

 gasoline that was recovered willy-nilly was a bother- 

 some waste. Petroleum men then cared and knew as 

 little about the hydrocarbons in crude oil as they did 

 about the Aztec gods. 



The electric light and the horseless carriage changed 

 all that. By 1910 the petroleum refiners were out of 

 the illuminating business and in fuel. The kerosene lamp 

 was relegated to the attic, while the demand for gaso- 

 line grew like a pumpkin vine on an August afternoon. 

 Half a million sputtering automobiles were jolting over 

 the rutty roads that year. During the next decade they 

 were to double every twelve months. 



Having stretched to the limit the gasoline that dis- 

 tills out of petroleum, the refiners began eking out with 

 gasoline squeezed by pressure out of natural gas. Even 

 before Pearl Harbor, sixty million barrels of this casing- 

 head gasoline were being recovered. 



And still the demand for gasoline grew and grew. 

 237 



