The Rise of Petroleum's Importance

World War I was waged so largely on foot because Americans had not yet established mass production of oil. From 1920 on, peace-loving America became reliant on turning out as many automobiles, tractors, and other petroleum-consuming petroleum courses in islamabad vehicles as possible. By 1938 the last full year before World War II, the United States was producing 3,469,000 barrels of petroleum liquids every day, and consuming 3.115,000 barrels at home. In 1910 the United States demand for petroleum products was only 170,000,000 barrels for the entire year. By 1920, the demand was tripled to 436.000.000 barrels. In 1930 it was more than five times the 1910 demand, or 927,000,000 barrels. In 1938 it was one and one-eighth billion barrels!

What caused this rise of petroleum's importance?

The answer is Nature, plus private enterprise. Many years before the Indians came to the American continent, however, somebody else had found the Pennsylvania oil useful. There is evidence of ancient workings in the oil regions of Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Ohio. There remain the vestiges of carefully prepared oil pits, frequently lined with timbers-and Indians did not engage in this type of construction. Possibly these workings were by the same pre-history people who mined copper near Lake Superior.

But, before even these predecessors of the Indians, certain types of petroleum products were being used. The Tower of Babel was put together with an asphalt substance, the walls of Babylon were similarly held together, and the bodies of Egypt's ancient kings, buried in the pyramids, were, in part, embalmed with some sort of bituminous product. Therefore, man has known for several thousand years that there was such a thing as petroleum courses in islamabad,and that it existed in several parts of the world.

But it was not until about 1859 that Colonel Drake and his associates saw commercial possibilities in the viscous liquid. Drake, of course, was anxious to sell it in bottles for medicine, in barrels for axle grease and lamp fluids. And, as is attested by the fact that the British began buying petroleum in 1861, petroleum courses in islamabad the demand for the product soon became international. Derricks of the other "wildcatters soon dotted the hills adjoining Colonel Drake's well" a most respectable business name for a man who is brave enough to risk his fortune to drill an oil well. They, like Drake, had to go down only 692 feet, and the teeming surplus of crude oil depressed the price per barrel from $20 to 10 cents almost overnight. This low price remained for a few years until such "impurities" as gasoline were refined out of the kerosene, whereupon the price began climbing slowly.