20 
BULLETIN 102, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
mand for the light products of distillation, the liquids now sold under 
the commercial name of gasoline, which were, therefore, largely waste 
products in an economic sense and even in some instances physically 
YEARS 
isqq »qo4- I90<? IRI4- 
Fig. 5. — Chart showing the relative 
VALUES OP THE PRINCIPAL PETROLEUM 
PRODUCTS MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED 
States from 1899 to 1914. Note the 
DECREASING IMPORTANCE OF KEROSENE 
IN SUSTAINING THE COST OF REFINING, 
AND THE NECESSITY OF EXPORTS FOR 
destroyed for want of any ade- 
quate demand for their utiliza- 
tion. Gasoline for a long time, 
then, was a by-product of little 
value turned out in the manufac- 
ture of kerosene. (See fig. 5.) 
Toward the close of the nine- 
teenth century, however, the com- 
mercial application of the incan- 
descent mantle in gas lighting and 
the development of the electric 
light introduced a type of illumi- 
nation so superior to the kerosene 
lamp in convenience that the use 
of the latter was gradually rele- 
gated, in large part, to the small 
town, the country, and foreign re- 
gions, where the introduction of 
gas and electricity was not pos- 
sible. Accordingly, in spite of a 
most aggressive campaign for 
foreign trade on the part of the 
petroleum industry, the refinery 
faced the restrictions of a slowing 
demand for kerosene which pre- 
saged a limit to the output of the 
whole set of petroleum products. 
But the menace of this limiting 
circumstance was destroyed, be- 
fore it became effective, by the 
introduction and rapid advance 
of the internal-combustion engine. 
The phenomenal growth in the 
use of the automobile built up 
products. Data from Story B. Ladd, # ^ 
Petroleum, Refining. Census of Such a heavy demand for gasoline 
Manufactures: 1914, Bureau of the • nror | 11r1 - Lffo the 
Census, Washington, 1917, p. 10. max miS P roau Ct came 111 LO uie 
lead and took up the burden of 
justifying the increasing refinery consumption of crude petroleum — 
a burden which kerosene, even with the aid of a growing market for 
fuel oil, lubricants, and other oil products, was scarcely longer able 
