The fireside university of modern invention, discovery, industry and art for home circle study and entertainment . rtificial Light ? So far, Electricity furnishes it, and we have described, in thechapter on Electricity, the manner in which the two commonforms of Electric Light are furnished to the people. What is the commonest Light? That produced by burning a wick whose lower end isimmersed in Kerosene. Lamps for this purpose have beenproduced of every size and form, and stoves, both for heatingand cooking, have long been in use. Great difficulty has arisenin overcoming the tendency of the la
The fireside university of modern invention, discovery, industry and art for home circle study and entertainment . rtificial Light ? So far, Electricity furnishes it, and we have described, in thechapter on Electricity, the manner in which the two commonforms of Electric Light are furnished to the people. What is the commonest Light? That produced by burning a wick whose lower end isimmersed in Kerosene. Lamps for this purpose have beenproduced of every size and form, and stoves, both for heatingand cooking, have long been in use. Great difficulty has arisenin overcoming the tendency of the lamp or stove to give off anodor. LIGHT AND HEAT. 335 Where does Kerosene come from ? It is refined from Petroleum, or rock oil, which flows or ispumped from wells sunk in various parts of the earths surface,from Japan eastward at least to Indiana. The word Keroseneis also wax-ene, for Keros in Greek, means wax. What is Petroleum ? It is one stage in a series of untheorized chemical changes inhydro-carbon molecules. Naphtha may be found flowing out ofthe earth, a clear, limpid fluid. On reaching and mixing with. Fig. 123. TAGLIABUES APPARATUS FOR TESTING COAL OIL. air, it grows thicker, and is Petroleum. Further exposure andcontamination turn it into mineral tar. As it hardens it becomesasphalt or bitumen. There is no bitumen in what the minerscall bituminous coal. Where zvas Petroleum discovered in America ? On Oil Creek, a tributary of Allegheny River, in WesternPennsylvania. A man named Blake was the discoverer in great oil excitement and speculation did not come untilwar-time, and the first person enriched—called Coal OilJohnny, made a sensation with his easily-gotten money. Citiesrose and fell, and there are places now devoid of inhabitants, 336 THE FIRESIDE UNIVERSITY. where once were hotels, telegraph offices, daily rapers andopera-houses. In those days, the wells spouted crude oil,
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