KEROSENE.

It was a long step from the smoky and ill-smelling whale-oil lamp to the clear and brilliant kerosene burner. At the present time the best illumination is furnished by gas and electricity, but in the country and to a large extent in the cities the kerosene lamp is still in common use, and doubtless will remain so for a long time to come. This lamp with its recent important improvements is mainly of American origin and development.

Kerosene for lighting purposes has some advantages over gas or electricity. The light produced from it is steady; therefore it is less harmful to the eyes than the flickering light of illuminating gas, and even better than the electric light. It is far cheaper than either. It has a third advantage, since it can be used in a hand lamp which can be carried from place to place. A large portion of our population consider it so valuable that they would rather give up the gaslight altogether, or indeed the electric light, than be obliged to lose the kerosene lamp.

Kerosene is a form of petroleum which is obtained from the earth by deep wells. It is only within the last fifty years that this oil has been pumped in sufficient quantities to make it a valuable industry, though petroleum was obtained here and there in small quantities far back in the early ages. It seems a little singular that the people of Japan and Persia should have dug oil wells centuries ago. Herodotus, who wrote history five hundred years before Christ, tells us of the springs of Zante, one of the Ionian Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, from which oil flowed. It is said that these springs are still flowing.

China seems to have been the first country to draw oil from artesian wells. We proud Americans are accustomed to think ourselves a little ahead of all other people. When an American boy in San Francisco, for instance, meets a Chinese lad, he is quite apt to look down upon him and to think that this little Chinese boy came from a country hardly civilized and certainly far behind the "universal Yankee nation;" yet we are constantly finding traces of a civilization in China much earlier than our own.

The first successful oil well in this country was made by Col. E. L. Drake, near Titusville, Pennsylvania. In 1854 the Pennsylvania Rock-Oil Company was organized for the purpose of procuring petroleum in Oil Creek. Four years later this company employed Colonel Drake to drill an artesian well. On the 29th of August, 1859, he "struck oil" only sixty-nine feet below the surface of the ground. The next day this well was found to be nearly full of petroleum.

Oil is now found in large quantities in various sections of Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, and Kentucky, and it has recently been discovered in California, Wyoming, Colorado, and other portions of our land. The largest part of the oil used in commerce is from Pennsylvania. At the present time more than fifty million barrels of petroleum are produced annually in the United States alone, which is more than half of the entire product of the world. A single well has been known to yield forty thousand gallons a day, flowing freely without the slightest use of pumping apparatus.

The product of these wells after a time greatly diminishes and sometimes ceases altogether. In such cases it is customary to explode torpedoes at the bottom of the well. This is done by placing there several gallons of nitroglycerine with a fulminating cap on top. This cap is exploded by dropping a piece of iron upon it. The explosion opens the seams and crevices around the bottom of the well so as to renew the flow of oil.

It is now about forty years since the first introduction of kerosene as an article of commerce. To-day it is in almost universal use throughout the civilized world. It gives a convenient light at a moderate expense, and has therefore proved a great blessing to mankind. Meantime the whale fishery has largely diminished; indeed, it would seem to be almost destroyed. The reasons for this are not difficult to find. In the first place, the number of whales is much less than formerly, so that this business is far less profitable than it used to be. In the second place, the rapid development of the kerosene industry has so cheapened the product that people cannot afford to light their houses with whale oil, especially as they find the kerosene not only cheaper, but more convenient and satisfactory.

Common whale oil previous to 1850 had been furnished at an average cost of perhaps fifty cents a gallon, while the sperm oil, which is of superior quality, cost as much as one dollar a gallon. The people of the whole country east of the Rocky Mountains feed their lamps to-day with kerosene at a cost of from eight cents to twelve cents a gallon.

A few persons have made great fortunes from the oil wells. On the other hand, it should not be forgotten that the modern processes of purifying kerosene could not have been put in operation without the aid of large fortunes. A cheap and satisfactory light has been furnished to all the people of the United States only by means of the great capital employed in its production.

So you see civilization is progressing, and we are all enjoying more blessings and conveniences than our fathers had. In the earlier times every one had to labor diligently to secure food, clothing, and shelter. As civilization advances these require less time and expense, and we have greater opportunities to attend to the development of our higher natures, the acquisition of knowledge, the pursuit of science, and the elevation of the race.