Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 26.djvu/125

Rh the result that cannel-coal was found to be essentially oleiferous. The discovery near Bathgate, in Linlithgowshire, of a very rich gas-coal, like the celebrated Boghead coal, led to the establishment of a distillery in its neighborhood, the coal being broken up into fragments like road-metal, and heated to a red-heat in cast-iron retorts. A ton of this coal was found to yield about one hundred and twenty gallons of crude oil. This, being subjected to a second distillation, resolved itself into certain proportions of light oil for burning, thick oil for machinery, a small quantity of naphtha, and a large residuum of paraffine, which, when purified with animal charcoal, is transformed into a substance like beautifully white wax.

Great was the-interest excited by this discovery; but difficulties were thrown in the way of Dr. Young's obtaining a patent for his invention, as it was proved that many years previously Reichenbach had tried a similar experiment, and, by distilling one hundred pounds of coal, had obtained two ounces of an oil resembling naphtha. Young, however, carried the day, and his now celebrated patent was granted in 1850.

It was not till six years later that any fresh attempt was made thus to utilize the great beds of bituminous shale which are so extensively found in carboniferous districts, but which had hitherto been totally neglected. These have been found to yield from thirty to fifty gallons of crude oil per ton; and great works for the manufacture of mineral oil have been established at many places in England, Wales, and Scotland.

"Greater Britain" was not slow to adopt the new industry started in the mother-country. In 1865 New South Wales discovered among its hid treasures a shale similar to the Boghead coal of Scotland, but considerably richer in oil, and less sulphurous. A sample was brought to Sydney for distillation, and one ton yielded one hundred and sixty gallons of oil. Thereupon the New South Wales Shale and Oil Company was established, and seems to have developed into a very important industry.

America had taken up the subject earlier. In 1854 the Kerosene Oil Company and several other companies were started to distill oil from coal, and by 1860 upward of fifty factories for this work had been established in various parts of the States.

Then came the discovery of real mineral-oil wells, which so quickly revolutionized the oil-traffic of the world. Here, as in most other cases, we have evidence of the "nothing-new" theory; for, since King Petroleum has asserted his power, men marvel to find traces of ancient workings, proving that by-gone generations had discovered the native oil—so long ago, that very old trees of several centuries' growth have been found growing in the excavated ground. From some strange cause unknown, these oil-seekers had abandoned their work, and (although mineral oils were known to exist in Asia) their presence in