On bitumens, oil shales, and oil coals
Authors: Taylor Andrew 
Published: December 2013

Mr Taylor stated, that of late years we had gained some knowledge on the general subject of what coals and shales were. We were not now in the position we were in fifteen or twenty years ago, when fourteen scientific witnesses went before a very venerable court and said that a certain substance was Coal, while as many on the other side said it was not. The very title that had now come into very general use, ‶oil shales,″ showed that we had adopted a name that defined at least the limits of our knowledge of coal and shale. We had lost the old notion that violent action was necessary to form a new mineral body. Coals, shales, and bitumen were the result of the great progress of nature’s chemistry continued, it might be, through millions of centuries. After noticing the universality of the oil springs, these being found in the Palæozoic formations, in the Devonian and intermediate periods up to the Coal Measures, he went on to speak of the American oil-fields, and remarked that the oil in the formations of the Palæozoic period was very extensive in America. It could be traced through the State of Ohio to the borders of Lake Erie, and was found in the district of the Canadian oil-springs. Whether the latter oil-springs were to compete with paraffin oils or not, he could not say. Great improvements had been effected in removing the sulphur, which was the great objection to the Canadian oils, and they could be had very cheap—simply for the boring. They could be utilised, however, otherwise than as burning oils. There were large deposits of iron along the shores of Lake Erie, and these oils might be employed in utilising the great metallurgic treasures, and that perhaps would bring the miners to their senses. The pitch lake of Trinidad was next spoken of. Where the bitumen came from was almost impossible to answer, but there was a mud volcano near the lake. Petroleum appeared to have more to do with the activity of the mud volcano than the mud volcano had in making it. The tar in the lake did not contain any paraffin. With regard to the American oil, whilst he would not say that the supply was unlimited, it was almost so, and would compete with our interests here for a good while to come. He mentioned that oil was also being found in the Apennines, in Hanover, and in Hamburg. In Hamburg it seemed to be machinery oil of a specific gravity of 8.93 that was obtained, and it was very near the chalk. In discussing the question how we were to utilise these oils, he said he would not detain the Society with noticing the dreams that had been dissipated regarding utilising oil for the purposes of steam navigation. People would not run the chance of being blown up in a vessel, even though they might be carried at less cost and a greater speed. But it had been proved that petroleum and paraffin had enormous heating properties; only there was the question of cost to be considered as well. Sir William Armstrong had proved very conclusively that a ton of petroleum was equivalent to two tons of coals, but that represented in money about L.5 to L.2. If we could get material cheap enough, or obtain the creosote from the London Gasworks at 18s. a ton, it would form a very good heating material indeed. It was being used in metallurgic operations. Experiments carried on at Woolwich showed that it gave a very much higher heat, and was more economical than ordinary coal. If coals were to keep permanently at the present very high rates, it might be necessary for us to turn our attention to retorts fired by the shale, so that we might be enabled to utilise our enormous shale fields. In speaking of the use of crude oil in the manufacture of gas, Mr Taylor exhibited a diagram of an invention by Dr Eveleigh, and said that the gas made in it was better and of a higher lighting power. The objection to using shales in gas manufacture was that they increased the labour four times without any corresponding result in coke; that might be avoided by using bigger retorts than we were in the habit of doing in gasworks. In conclusion, he noticed that the value of shale as a crude oil maker was no criterion for its value as a gas maker.

In the discussion which followed, Mr Peter M‘Lagan of Pumpherston, M.P. for Linlithgowshire, remarked that Mr Taylor had very properly divided his subject into two parts—
first,
the heating properties of oil, and
second,
the gas-making properties of oil. As to its heating properties, he knew of the experiments that had been made under the supervision of the Admiralty at Woolwich. When in London, he had inspected these, and he never was more convinced of anything than that, in time, oil would supersede coal in steam vessels. Whenever the price of crude oil came down to about L.3 per ton, it would certainly be substituted for coal in steamers. The use of coal in steam vessels involved a great quantity of ashes, and a great many stokers. If oil were used, the saving of space would be immense. Oil could be stored in cisterns, which would occupy only one-tenth of the space that coal did, so that vessels trading to a great distance would be enabled to carry a larger cargo. Some people had expressed a fear of being blown up, but if proper oil was used there was no fear of that. Petroleum and the lighter oils would not be used, but heavier or tarry oil was best for the purpose of raising heat. The gas makers were not satisfied with oil as a gas-producing material, because, in their opinion, it did not produce a permanent gas, but a gas very apt to condense in the pipes. The cause of that might be that they used an oil that was too light, and an oil that would explode at too low a temperature and too easily converted into gas. If they were to use an oil of greater specific gravity and of a higher inflammability, perhaps it would not have the same effect. If such an apparatus were used as that patented by Dr Eveleigh, the objections brought against oil as a gas-producing material would be entirely done away with. He (Mr M‘Lagan) did not think that shale would ever be brought into competition with gas-producing coals, but he saw no reason whatever that oil should not be brought into competition with them. Before using the oil for the purpose of making gas, he thought the lighter element of it, such as ether, should be extracted. Oil might be used most profitably for the purpose of smelting iron where the ironstone was near the oil-producing strata. In Lanarkshire and other parts of Scotland oil-producing minerals were found in close contact with blackband and clayband ironstone, and he was aware that some ironmasters in the west were seeking this oil-producing mineral for the purpose of making burning oil. Perhaps it would be much more to their advantage if they used that material for the purpose of smelting their ironstone, instead of bringing it into competition with some of the oil-producing shales in the counties of Lanarkshire and Edinburgh. After noticing the character of the Hamburg oil, and the fact that the chalk on which it rested was highly impregnated with oil, Mr M‘Lagan referred to the Trinidad Lake, and said he was sure if the people of Trinidad knew the uses to which tar was put in this country, they would begin to use the tar in the lake for similar purposes. Mr M‘Lagan concluded by expressing the pleasure it had given him to listen to Mr Taylor, and he hoped the Government would come to learn that they had in the northern capital one who could give so much useful information on so important a subject.