PETROLEUM PRODUCTS AND THEIR USES in the vicinity of two hundred dif ferent products can be obtained from petroleum, and the uses to which they may be put are well nigh innumerable. The uses of the half-dozen chief products, in fact, are in themselves so varied that only the most important can be mentioned in the ordinary limit of a single chapter. In the whole realm of natural substances it would be impossible to find any other which rivals petroleum and its products in the great diversity of the needs they supply.
Petroleum first became important through the il luminating oil known nowadays by the familiar name "kerosene." The first kerosene, however, was not a petroleum product at all ; it was an illuminating oil made from coal a dozen years before the drilling of Drake's well. Kerosene was merely a trade name coined, by Abraham Gesner, from a Greek root meaning wax, thus signifying that it was a "par affin" or "wax" oil, as most manufactured oils were then called. The first real illuminating oil distilled from petroleum in this country was Kier 's product known as "carbon oil," and it was not until later that the term kerosene came to be ap plied generally to all petroleum illuminating oils.
The first decade of using petroleum illuminating oils forms the darkest period in the whole history of the industry. Serious accidents and fires were daily occurrences, everywhere casting suspicion on this new lamp oil, and for a time even threatening the life of the industry. "Deadly kerosene" was then a common description, and more or less de served, too, if the records of deaths, fire losses, and fatal accidents from lamp explosions are any in dication. But the fault was not so much in the character of the oil as it was in the character of the men selling it.
Much of the trouble came directly from the fact that the kerosene was in greater demand than any of the other products. The naphthas had then practically no important uses, and hence sold for only a few cents a gallon. Kerosene, on the con trary, sold readily at a price from five to ten times as great. It was to be expected, therefore, that strong competition among the refiners would lead many, especially the more unscrupulous ones, to turn as much of the lighter distillates as possible in with the kerosene. It was the presence of these
more volatile oils which made the whole combina tion extremely dangerous as soon as its use in lamps was attempted.
The worst conditions, however, were due to a class of plain frauds who advertised recipes for so called "secret" processes, guaranteed to render gasolene, naphtha, or benzine nonexplosive, and hence fit for use in lamps. This phase of the in dustry was more or less part and parcel of the oil bubble craze, in both cases a gullible public appar ently having taken leave of the last trace of com mon sense. Peddlers and canvassers sold the "se cret" recipes at a few dollars each, and about 1870 these "modified oils," just as explosive as ever, were sold throughout the country by a host of small dealers. The real character of the oils was concealed under such fancy names as "Liquid Gas," "Safety Gas," "Petroline," "Black Dia mond Anchor Oil," "Sunlight Nonexplosive Burning Fluid;" and so on indefinitely. The, processes were so utterly ridiculous that it seems hard to believe any sane person would have put a grain of faith in them. Thus, the "Sunlight Com pany," of Michigan, would sell to any family the right to manufacture according to its formula for the small sum of $2, making of the recipe a rare secret indeed! The recipe given consisted in dos ing the crude naphtha with an utterly ridiculous conglomeration, including alum, alcohol, cream of tartar, sal soda, two tablespoonfuls of fine table salt, oil of sassafras, gum camphor, and one pint of raw potatoes cut fine! The sale of these explosive oils and the impure kerosene increased rapidly on account of the gen eral demand for artificial lights, but the increase of fires, explosions, accidents, and losses of life from the use of kerosene lamps steadily kept pace with the greater use. "Deadly Kerosene" was get ting in its work not only here but abroad as well, and pamphlets illuminated with skull and cross bones were circulated, denouncing the "fatal liquid." Public indignation mounted high, and constant agitation of the subject soon brought ma terial results in the form of legal restrictions to which all illuminating oils must conform.