The production of crude oil in the United States has very largely increased, the daily average yield being estimated at 45,000 barrels. The local consumption of refined oil in the United States was over 3,000,000 barrels per annum. In 1879, China, Japan, Java, etc., took 600,000 barrels, against 185,000 barrels in 1877. The accumulated stock of crude oil in the United States at one period (June to August) reached the enormous total of 5,000,000 barrels. The total shipment from the United States to all parts of the world was 321,829,050 gallons, against 329,178,800 gallons in 1877, and 221,710,049 gallons in 1876.
It serves for lamps, and, mixed with ashes, answers the purposes of fuel. It is a good wood varnish. A composition of petroleum and resin is an excellent material for covering wood-work and for paying the bottoms of ships and boats, as it protects the timber from the attacks of worms and insects. When rectified by distillation, it affords naphtha. Candles are made of paraffin, a substance obtained by Mr. Warren De La Rue's process from Burma petroleum, and also produced by distillation of coal and other minerals of dis puted relationship to coal. Paraffin oil, obtained by the distillation of petroleum, of coal, etc., is a lubricating oil of much value for machinery of all kinds, as it does not injuriously affect brass or other metals. At Baku, on the shores of the
Caspian Sea, a petroleum locality, the viscid mineral is rolled up into balls, with earth, form ing a fuel in a convenient form. At the same place, and at many others, petroleum is used for coating the flat roofs of houses. In the Trans Indus, Northern Derajat, etc., it is the common application for sores on the backs of camels. Momyai is a black substance, principally clay, which, however, burns feebly, and softens slightly to the flame of a lamp, giving out a peculiar empyreumatic odour. It is the osteocolla of native medicine, and is, when genuine, of very high price, and its use solely medicinal. The specimens purchased often consist of solidified mineral tar, or still oftener of lignite. Petroleum has been discovered in many places and in great abund ance, selling in London in 1883 at Gd. the gallon, and has led to a great diminution in the number of whalers.—Captain Cox in As. Res. vi. p. 127 ; Dr. 1Vinehester in Bonn. Geog. Tr. iii. p. 115; Captain Halsted in Bend. As. Trans., 1841; Capt. Hannay; Jury's Reports Ex.; Honigberger, p. 322 ; Royle's Mat. Med. ; Smith's Mat. Med.; Powell, p. 20; Mason's Tenasserim; Yule's Em bassy.