Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

ENGINEERING IN THE WORLD’S OIL FIELDS. 341 mania, Peru, and South. Russia, while the nitrate factories of Chile are yearly consuming greater quantities of it. The same fuel serves all the steamers on the Caspian Sea, and many- on the Volga and Black Sea. In England the Great Eastern Railway Company has for years utilized a combined oil and coal system for some of their locomotives. Within the limited scope of this article it has only been possible to indicate briefly the wide range of engineering subjects covered by the extraction, treatment, and marketing of petroleum. Few people in these islands have any idea of the magnitude of the oil industry, and many are sublimely ignorant of the rela- tionship of petrol, lamp oil, lubricants, and liquid fuel. The reason for this is due largely to the fact that oil is not found within the United Kingdom, excepting, of course, in the oil shales of the Lothians. In contrast to this a similar ignorance prevails in Baku upon the subject of coal mining. There every one from his childhood upwards has used oil either in its crude state in the kitchen oven or as a refined product in lamps ; whereas by its scarceness and cost, coal well justifies its soubriquet of “ black diamonds.” Glancing at the future of the oil industry, there can be no doubt that its progress is well assured. As a motive power for high-speed internal-combustion engines the lighter con- stituents stand unrivalled, and there appears to be no limit to the demand for petrol that is being created by motor cars and boats. Thanks to this highly volatile product, which but a few years ago was almost unknown, the conquest of the air promises soon to bo an accomplished fact.