446 



NA TURE 



[September 4, 1890 



recent official inquiry which I have conducted with Mr. Boverton 

 Redwood has furnished most gratifying proof that very substan- 

 tial progress has been made within the last few years by lamp- 

 manufacturers in the voluntary adoption of such principles of 

 construction as we had experimentally demonstrated to be essen- 

 tial for securing the safe use of mineral oils in lamps for lighting 

 and heating purposes, the employment of which has, within a 

 brief period, received enormous extension in this and other 

 countries. 



The creation and rapid development of the petroleum industry 

 has, indeed, furnished one of the most remarkable illustrations 

 which can bi cited of industrial progress during the period 

 which has elapsed since the British Association last met in 

 Leeds. One year after that meeting, viz. on August 28, 1859, 

 the first well, drilled in the United States with the object of 

 obtaining petroleum, was successfully completed, and t4ie rate 

 of increase in production in the Pennsylvania oil-fields during 

 the succeeding years is shown by the following figures :— 



In 1859, 5000 barrels (of forty-two American gallons) were 

 produced In the following year the production increased to 

 500,000 barrels ; while in the next year {1861) it exceeded 

 2,000,000 barrels, at which figure it remained, with slight 

 fluctuations, until 1865. The supply then continued to increase 

 gradually, until, in 1870, it reached nearly 6,000,000 barrels ; 

 while in 1874 it amounted to nearly 11,000,000 barrels. In 

 1880 it amounted to over 26,000,000 barrels, and in 1882 it 

 reached 31,000,000. Since then the supply furnished by the 

 United States has fallen somewhat, and last year it amounted 

 to 21,500,000 barrels. The production of crude petroleum in 

 the Pennsylvanian fields, large as it has been, has not, however, 

 kept pace with the consumption, for we find that the accumu- 

 lated stocks, which on December 31, 1888, amounted to over 

 18,000,000 barrels, had become reduced to about 11,000,000 

 barrels at the close of last year. At this rate the surplus stock 

 above ground will have vanished by the end of the current year. 

 In addition to the petroleum raised in Pennsylvania, there is 

 now a very large production in the State of Ohio ; but this has 

 not as yet been employed as a source of lamp-oil ; it is, how- 

 ever, transported by pipe line in great quantities to Chicago, for 

 use as liquid fuel in industrial operations. 



A few years after the development of the United States petro- 

 leum-industry, the production of crude petroleum in Russia also 

 began to extend very rapidly. For more than 2500 years, Baku, 

 on the borders of the Caspian Sea, has been celebrated for its 

 naphtha springs, and for the perpetual flames of the Fire 

 Worshippers, fed by the marvellous subterranean supplies of 

 natural gas. To a limited extent neighbouring nations appear 

 to have availed themselves of the vast supplies of mineral oil 

 at Baku during the past thousand years. By the thirteenth 

 century the export of the crude oil had already become some- 

 what extensive, but the production of petroleum from it by dis- 

 tillation is of comparatively recent date. In 1863 the supplies 

 of petroleum from the Baku district amounted to 5018 tons ; 

 they increased to somewhat more than double during the suc- 

 ceeding five years. In 1869 and following three years the pro- 

 duction reached about 27,000 tons annually, and in 1873 it was 

 about 64,000 tons ; three years later, 153,000 tons were pro- 

 duced, and in the following five years there was a steady annual 

 increase, until, in 1882, the production amounted to 677,269 

 tons ; in 1884 it considerably exceeded 1,000,000 tons, and last 

 year it had reached the figure of about 3,300,000 tons. The 

 consumption of crude petroleum as fuel for locomotive purposes 

 has, moreover, now assumed very large proportions in Russia, 

 and many millions of gallons are annually consumed in working 

 the vast system of railways on both sides of the Caspian Sea. 



The imported refined petroleum used in this country in lamps 

 for lighting, heating, and cooking, was exclusively American 

 until within the last few years, but a very large proportion of 

 present supplies comes from Russia. The imports of kerosene 

 into London and the chief ports of the United Kingdom during 

 1889 amounted to 1,116,205 barrels of United States oil, and 

 771,227 barrels of Russian oil. During the same period the out- 

 turn of mineral oil for use in lamps by the Scottish shale oil 

 companies probably amounted to about 500,000 barrels. 



Another important feature connected with the development 

 of the petroleum industry is the great extent to which the less 

 volatile products of its distillation have replaced vegetable and 

 animal oils and fats for lubricating purposes in this and other 

 countries. The value of petroleum as a liquid fuel and as a 



source of gas for illuminating purposes has, moreover, been long 

 since recognized, and it is probable that one outcome of the 

 attention which is now being given to the hitherto unworked 

 deposits of petroleum in the East and West Indies, South 

 America, and elsewhere, will be a very large increase in its 

 application to these purposes. In the East Indies there are vast 

 tracts of oil-fields in Burmah, Baluchistan, Assam, and the 

 Punjab. The native Rangoon oil industry is one of great 

 antiquity, although the oil was only used in the crude condition 

 until about thirty-five years ago, at which time Dr. Hugo Miil- 

 ler, with the late Warren De la Rue, whose many-sided labours 

 and generous benefactions have so importantly contributed to 

 the advancement of science, made valuable researches on the 

 products furnished by crude oil imported from Rangoon. The 

 resources of the oil-fields of Upper Burmah, especially of the dis- 

 trict of Yenangyoung (or creek of stinking water), have since 

 then been developed by British enterprise, and have attained to 

 considerable importance since our annexation of Upper Burmah. 

 The great extension of the petroleum trade is gradually lead- 

 ing to very important improvements in the system of transport 

 of the material over water and on land. Until recently this has 

 been carried out entirely in barrels and tin cases ; the conse- 

 quent great loss from leakage and evaporation, accompanied by 

 risk of accident, is now becoming much reduced by the rapidly- 

 increasing employment of tank-steamers, which transport the oil 

 in bulk. Tank railway-waggons have for some time past been 

 in use in Russia, and there is a prospect of these and of tank- 

 barges being adopted here for the distribution of the oil ; while 

 in London, the practice is already spreading gradually of distri- 

 buting supplies to tradesmen from tank road-waggons. Some 

 considerable doubt as to whether the risk of accident has not 

 rather been altered in character than actually reduced by the new 

 system of transport, has not unnaturally been engendered in the 

 public mind by the occurrence within a comparatively short 

 period of several serious disasters during the discharge of cargoes^ 

 from tank-vessels. The memorable explosion which took place, 

 in October 1888, on board the Villc de Calais, in Calais Har- 

 bour, with widespread destructive effects, was followed by a 

 similarly serious explosion in the Fergusons, at Rouen, last 

 December, and, more recently, by a fire of somewhat destructive 

 character at Sunderland, resulting from the discharge into the 

 river of petrolem-residues from a ship's tanks. In all these cases 

 the petroleum was of a nature to allow inflammable vapour to 

 escape readily from the liquid, so that an explosive mixture could 

 be rapidly formed by its copious diff"usion through the air. No- 

 similar casualty has been brought to notice as having happened 

 to tank-ships carrying petroleum oil of which the volatility is in 

 accordance with our legal requirements, and this points to the 

 prudence of restricting the application of the tank system to the- 

 transport and distribution of such petroleum as complies with 

 well-established conditions of safety. 



Another most remarkable feature connected with the develop- 

 ment of the petroleum industry is presented by the utilization, 

 within the last few years, of the vast supplies of natural inflam- 

 mable gas furnished by the oil-fields. 



In America this remarkable gas-supply was for a long time- 

 only used locally, but, before the close of 1885 its conveyance ta 

 a distance by pipes, for illuminating and heating purposes, had 

 assumed large proportions ; one of the companies in Pittsburgh 

 having alone laid 335 miles of pipes of various sizes, through 

 which gas was supplied equivalent in heating value to 3,650,000- 

 tons of coal per annum. Since then the consumption in and 

 around Pittsburgh has probably been at least tripled. At the 

 close of 1886 six diff'erent companies were conveying natural 

 gas by pipes to Pittsburgh from 107 wells ; 500 miles of pipe, 

 ranging in diameter from 30 inches to 3 inches, were used by~ 

 these companies, 232 miles of which were laid within Pittsburgh 

 itself. The Philadelphia Company, the most important of these 

 associations, then owned the gas supply from 54,000 acres of 

 land situated on all the anticlinals around Pittsburgh, but drew 

 its supplies only from Tarentum and the Murraysville field. It 

 supplied, in 1886, 470 factories and about 5000 dwellings within 

 the city, besides many factories and dwellings in Alleghany, and 

 in numerous neighbouring villages. The average gas-pressure 

 at the wells, when the escape is shut off, is about 500 lbs. per 

 square inch, and in the case of new wells this pressure is very 

 greatly exceeded. In order to minimize the danger from leakage- 

 the gas-pressure in the city is reduced to a maximum of 13 lbs.,, 

 and is regulated by valves at a number of stations under the 

 control of a central station. The usual pressure in the larger 



NO. 1088, VOL. 42] 



