Early HistorY More than four thousand years ago, according to Herodotus and confirmed by Diodorus Siculus, asphalt was employed in the construction of the walls and towers of Babylon; there were oil pits near Ardericca (near Babylon), and a pitch spring on Zacynthus (Ionian islands, Greece). Great quantities of it were found on the banks of the river Issus[citation needed], one of the tributaries of the Euphrates. Ancient Persian tablets indicate the medicinal and lighting uses of petroleum in the upper levels of their society[citation needed]. Oil was exploited in the Roman province of Dacia, now in Romania, where it was called picula. The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 AD or earlier. They had depths of up to about 800 feet (240 m) and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles.[2] [unreliable source?] The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt. By the 10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs. The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating. Petroleum was known as burning water in Japan in the 7th century.[1] In his book Dream Pool Essays written in 1088, the polymathic scientist and statesman Shen Kuo of the Song Dynasty coined the word 石油 (Shíyóu, literally rock oil) for petroleum, which remains the term used in contemporary Chinese. The first streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region. In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan. These fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al-Hasan Alī al-Masūdī in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads. Distillation of Petroleum was described by the Persian alchemist, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes) .[3][unreliable source] There was production of chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic (al-ambiq),[4] which was mainly used for kerosene lamps.[5] Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes. Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century. [6] It has also been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură.[7] The earliest mention of petroleum in the Americas occurs in Sir Walter Raleighs account of the Trinidad Pitch Lake in 1595; while thirty-seven years later, the account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche dAllion, to the oil springs of New York was published in Gabriel Sagards Histoire du Canada. A Finnish born Swede, scientist and student of Carl Linnaeus, Peter Kalm, in his work Travels into North America published first in 1753 showed on a map the oil springs of Pennsylvania.[1] In 1710 or 1711 (sources vary) the Russian-born Swiss physician and Greek teacher Eirini dEyrinys (also spelled as Eirini dEirinis) discovered asphaltum at Val-de-Travers, (Neuchâtel). He established a bitumen mine de la Presta there in 1719 that operated until 1986.[8][9][10][11] In 1745 under the Empress Elisabeth of Russia the first oil well and refinery were built in Ukhta by Fiodor Priadunov. Through the process of distillation of the rock oil (petroleum) he received a kerosene-like substance, which was used in oil lamps by Russian churches and monasteries (though households still relied on candles).[12] Oil sands were mined from 1745 in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, Alsace under the direction of Louis Pierre Ancillon de la Sablonnière, by special appointment of Louis XV.[13] The Pechelbronn oil field was active until 1970, and was the birthplace of companies like Antar and Schlumberger. The first modern refinery was built there in 1857
Posted on: Thu, 21 Aug 2014 20:12:33 +0000
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