HAS ENGLAND AN OIL FUTURE?

Taranaki Daily News, 25 November 1920, Page 3

HAS ENGLAND AN OIL FUTURE?

LATEST EXPERIMENTS MAY HAVE FAR-1-fEACIHNG RESULTS. The sinking, of oil wells at. Hardstoft, Newark, and other places in the country, together with the recent announcement that it British firm is to undertake the extraction of oil from coal at Kirkby, in the Potts coalfield, focusses attention on an Industry which had its beginnings in the little village^,of Riddings, in Derbyshire. All the romance of the great oil industry centres in that peaceful unpretentious country beauty '•.pot, for it was here in early Victoria days that a discovery was made which gave to the world one of its most useful and lucrative industries. Americans arc visiting Stratford and Scrooby, the home of the Pilgrim Fathers, in their hundreds, but the great magnates, who have made their millions out of oil, never go out of their way to that historical village, the name of which should be printed in letters of gold. AN ACCIDENTAL DISCOVERY. It was towards . .- close of the year 1847 that .fames Oakes, an ironmaster in a small way, when boring for coal came upon a stream of oil. The spring, unlike anything that Oakes had ever seen, puzzled him. and he at once consulted his brother-in-law. Lyon, the future Lord Playfair, who readily appreciated the significance of the discovery. Playfair, who -was a practical chemist —he initiated Edward the Peacemaker into chemistry—reported the facts in his possession to the skilled and industrious James Young, with whom he had been associated at Glasgow University. To him he described the oi! as mineral naphtha, "about the consistence of thin treacle, which, will, one distillation, gives a clear, colorless liquid of brilliant illuminating power." Lord Playfair found that the oil dissolved caoutchouc easily, and he sent Young a gallon of it for examination, with the words: "Perhaps you could make a capital thing out of this new industry, and enable my friends to do the same."

ENGLAND'S FIRST MINERAL OIL SUPPLY'. Young was equal to the occasion, and very soon, after erecting a refinery with the help of a friend he produced a light oil for illumination and a heavy oil for lubrication. Thus, for the first time, England had mineral oil for lighting its lamps in place of, whale oil. Not long after Young had/started he went with a grave face to Lord Playfair to report that the oil was now clouded and turbid. Ruin, he thought, had come upon him. But the great scientist knew better, and with joy informed him that the cloudy appearance was due to *'a rare substance known as paraffin." Voung extracted some of the residue, and enough was produced to make a couple of candles. These were the first ever made of paraffin wax, and cost a sovereign each to produce—and a sovereign was worth something in those days—and were the. parents of the enormous paraffin wax candle industry. ' The stream of oil discovered by Oakes produced about 31)0 gallons of oil daily. j and this it continued to do for two years, after which it ran dry. OIL DISTILLED FROM COAT,. The impending failure of the oil well compelled Young to look around for other supplies, and he made a brilliant guess. He conjectured that he could obtain n similar oil artificially by distilling coal, and when oil ceased to flow at Biddings, he patented his process in ISSII, and commenced the manufacture of mineral oil from coal. American manufacturers secured licenses to use the patent, and they in turn, contemplated the resources of nature, and thus the petroleum fields of the United States were tapped for commercial purposes. Colonel Drake, in 1M!I. drilled the first oil well ever seicnt j filially sunk. In view of the early results at llnrdslnft. it is interesting to note that from a depth of 70 feet"the oil rose to within 10 feet of the surface, and pumping did the rest.

II is impossible to say how much oil will be extracted from coal in the new Kirkby venture. One kind of coal might only produce ?,u oallons of crude nil. but. another might yield something much nearer :!00 gallons. The coal from (he Midlands is peculiarly adaptable for the purpose, and probably lite scheme will mean the development, of coal scams which are not beiiis worked at present. The undertaking opens out wide possibilities in tin* way of cheap motor spirit, scenf. and oil' fuel.