1865.] Draper on Petroleum. 49 



PETROLEUM : 



Its Importance, its History ; Boring, Mefining. 



By Henry Draper, M.D., Professor of Natural Science in the 

 University of New York. 



In a country so large in area and yet so sparsely settled as the United 

 States, the tendency of men is to become extremely practical, and to 

 neglect things which do not seem to have an obvious bearing on the 

 production of wealth. Heretofore the attention of a great part of the 

 community has been directed to a peculiar agriculture, in order to ex- 

 tract the treasures of the soil as quickly as possible. As has been well 

 said, we commonly affirm that we are devoted to agriculture. We 

 count up the preponderating millions who spend their lives in that 

 pursuit. We say that we are a producing nation. It is not so. Agri- 

 culture has never been practised in the United States. We are miners 

 not farmers. We clear land and put a new field in tobacco. In due 

 season we send the produce to market. We put the same crop in the 

 same land a second year ; but if we try it a third or fourth we fail, for 

 the tobacco will not grow. 



How is this ? The plant has exhausted the soil of one of its in- 

 gredients necessary to fertility — its potash. Now in the absence of 

 that substance, which is essential to its very constitution, it can no 

 longer come to maturity. What, then, is the difference between the 

 Virginian who has been setting tobacco plants to collect the potash 

 from his land, and the Californian who has been employing men to 

 wash his soil for gold ? Both have sold or sent to other countries the 

 inorganic material that was their source of wealth. Both have im- 

 poverished their estates. Both are miners. 



Consider what has been going on for the last two centuries along 

 the whole Atlantic coast, for what has been said is only a forcible 

 presentment of what is going on everywhere. It holds good for 

 the cottcn, the wheat, the corn. From the shore line there has been 

 an onward march up the gentle incline of the continent. Strand after 

 strand of fertile soil has yielded up its wealth. The front of the vast 

 phalanx has already touched those regions where the rains are uncer- 

 tain, and therefore the seasons unreliable. Beyond them is the un- 

 trodden desert. 



A knowledge of what is thus approacing has caused much at- 

 tention to be devoted to the development of the other mineral re- 

 sources of the country. Gold, silver, mercury,- iron, copper, coal, and 

 a multitude of other valuable substances, are being continually de- 

 tected in places in which their existence was previously unknown. 

 Among these discoveries, that of Petroleum is without doubt the most 

 remarkable. Although I have already made mention of a few facts in 

 its history in a former article, the importance of the subject is suf- 

 ficient apology for referring to it more in detail, and for presenting 

 the following account derived from various American sources. 



VOL. II. E 



