Petroleum
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Petroleum. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a natural rock oil found in great abundance in various parts of the earth's crust. The most reasonable theory of its origin is that it has resulted from the slow decay of animals and plants that were imbedded in the mud out of which petroleum-bearing rocks were made by pressure and heat; that is to say, petroleum consists essentially of fats and oils once contained in animals and plants. This theory does not seem unreasonable when we recall the vast amount of fat yielded by the blubber of a whale or of oil in the form of turpentine yielded by a Georgia pine. The same result might be obtained from millions of small organisms. The use of petroleum is older than that of coal. No petroleum is found in the earliest rocks, such as granites. It is found usually in sandstone. Petroleum in the United States was first discovered at Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1858, and has since been found in almost every state of the union. Our great petroleum fields, however, lie in Pennsylvania, New York , Ohio, West Virginia , Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Texas, and California. Paying wells are discovered in new localities each year. The total area of oil fields of the United States is about equal to that of Massachusetts. Mexico, Canada, Japan, and New Zealand have important oil fields, but, outside of the United States, the Russian fields about the Caspian Sea are by far the most important. The United States produces sixty-seven per cent; Russia, twentysix per cent, and all other countries seven per cent. The total annual yield is over 250,000,000 barrels. Petroleum is obtained by driving wells until a supply of oil is obtained. Sometimes the oil rises to the surface, but usually it requires to be pumped like water. Under modern management the crude petroleum is conveyed from tanks through underground passages to refineries. Pipes lead from the oil fields of Pennsylvania to Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Cleveland. A pipe runs from Kokomo, Indiana, to Chicago. The Kansas-Oklahoma field is piped clear to New York harbor. Pipe systems of corresponding magnitude have been laid in other oil-producing districts. A pipe line costing $4,000,000 leads from Baku to the port of Batoum on the Black Sea . The petroleum supply of the United States is in the hands, practically, of the Standard Oil Company, which aims to control the pipe mains. This company is willing, usually, to lay a branch pipe to any productive well in its region, and to accept the crude oil of the local producer at a price fixed by the purchaser. The company controls 25,000 miles of pipe lines. Crude petroleum is distilled in refineries. It yields quite a variety of products, as natural gas, gasoline, naphtha, benzine, paraffin, and vaseline; chiefly, however, kerosene or illuminating oil. A very great number of lubricating and healing preparations are made at the refineries and byfactories. The crude petroleum output for the United States during 1908 was: Field. Barrels. California 45,000,000 Colorado 400,000 Texas 11,904,000 Louisiana 6,896,000 Illinois 38,000,000 Indiana, Ohio 7,287,000 Kentucky, Tennessee 1,250,000 Kansas, Oklahoma 50,741,678 Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia,and Eastern Ohio 24,240,000 Wyoming 13,000 Others 3,000 Total . . . . . 184,734,678 The world production for 1907 was: Country. Barrels. United States 166,095,000 Russia 61,850,000 Sumatra, Java, and Borneo 8,738,000 Galicia 8,360,000 Roumania 8,118,000 India 4,344,000 Japan 2,000,000 Mexico 1,000,000 Canada 788,000 Germany 756,000 Peru 65,000 Italy 53,000 Others 30,000 Total . . . . . 262,212,000 See Trust ; Oil ; Baku 2026 Editor's Note: Petroleum's empire was young — Spindletop (1901) had made oil cheap, the Model T (1908) was making it necessary, and Standard Oil had one year before the breakup. Kerosene, not gasoline, was still the main product. See petroleum . (Ed: BR 2026-06-19)
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
Previous to the discovery of the value of petroleum as an illuminating agent, the only artificial light for domestic and other similar uses was the tallow-candle and dirty oil-lamp; but when whale and other animal oils became too costly, resort was had to natural tar and bituminous slate in order to obtain illuminating-oils, and lamp-oils were for a long time prepared from wood, resin, and other substances. The manufacture of coal-oil was introduced into this country about 1853, being confined to districts where bituminous coal could be mined at a cheap rate. When the value of coal-oil had become recognized, rock-oil or petroleum began to claim attention as a ready means of supplying these oils cheaply, as it was found to be analogous in its properties to that distilled from soft coal. It is probable that the petroleum now found in the earth is the product of original decomposition, and of subsequent distillation. Petroleum is, however, rarely found in contact with bituminous strata of any kind, being usually found in fissures of sand rocks, which fissures serve two purposes--one, to give space for the formation and expansion of the hydrocarbon vapor; the other, to furnish receptacles for the condensed oils. To obtain this oil, one of these fissures must be pierced by a well, when in some instances the oil is forced with such velocity as to produce a jet one hundred feet high. This oil is found in great quantities on the shores of the Caspian Sea; at Burmah, in the East Indies; and in Pennsylvania, Canada, and many other parts of the American continent. Fine specimens of naphtha are found in several parts of Italy. The purer kinds of rock-oil, which are almost colorless and very thin, are NAPHTHA, while the more viscid and darker liquids are PETROLEUM. The variations of color and consistence in rock-oils is owing to the pitchy and fatty substances being more dissolved in those oils that are most fluid. The word petroleum (rock-oil) is used to designate the forms of bitumen that are of an oily consistence, the bitumen passing by insensible gradations into the volatile naphtha on the one hand, and semi-fluid mineral tars on the other. Among its distillates are carbon-oil, paraffine, naphtha, gasoline, and benzine. Besides its use for illuminating purposes, it is now recognized as a fuel on both steamships and locomotives, as well as for ordinary domestic and manufacturing purposes. The products of petroleum that have proved most valuable in medicine are the filtered-paraffine residues, as cosmoline, vaseline, etc., widely used, plain and medicated, as ointments. See BITUMEN.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
a natural oil found in the earth, composed mainly of hydrocarbons. Its existence has been known since earliest times, but it was found in large quantities only following its disin Pennsylvania 1850. Since covery developthat time there has been rapid ment in its production. There was a discovery of oil fields in the United States, in Mexico, in Russia, and in Rumania. These are the chief producing countries, although oil is found in many other places on the earth's surface. The chief feature in recent years has been the development of new oil fields in the mid-west part of the United States and in California. In 1919 377,719,000 barrels of petroleum were marketed The total production in 1919 was 380,- 000,000 barrels. Of this over 100,000,from California, 116,- 000 barrels came 000,000 barrels from the Oklahoma- Kansas fields, 68,000,000 barrels from the central and north Texas fields, and the remainder from the Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain fields. The consumption of domestic crude petroleum in 1919 in the United States was 375,000,000 barrels. The development of the internal combustion engine, driven by gasoline, has resulted in the growth of a great industry in the production of gasoline, which is a by-product of petroleum. The increased use of petroleum as fuel oil has greatly increased the consumption. The fuel oil consumption of railroads alone amount to about 40 million barrels yearly. The gasoline production in 1919 was about 3,500,000,000 gallons. Mexico is one of the great petroleum countries. In 1919 the production was nearly 100 million barrels. The production in Russia decreased greatly on account of the conditions resulting from the war. The possibility of the exhaustion of petroleum fields in the United States has received considerable attention and steps are being taken to conserve the supply as far as possible, or to provide for the control of other fields from which additional supplies can be obtained. The world production of petroleum in 1917 was 506,702,902 barrels, of which about 335,000,000 barrels were produced in the United States.