ABSTRACT
The history of petroleum in its practical applications belongs to modern times. For while the Fire-worshippers from India and the East resorted centuries ago to the district near Baku on the Caspian Sea, where inflammable gas issued from the ground and where remains of some of their temples existed down to our own times, the use of the oil which was associated with the gas was of little practical importance. The great petroleum industry of the United States began in 1859. Up to this time the oil which was used almost exclusively as a medicinal agent, both internally and externally, had been collected in a crude way from the water of the Seneca Lake in Allegheny County, New York, and other places. Petroleum is a mixture of compounds which consist of the elements carbon and hydrogen only. The chemist speaks of them as hydrocarbons.
