The Banner-Democrat. [volume] (Lake Providence, East Carroll Parish, La.) 1892-current, 1902-02-15
BY-PRODUCTSE EXPLOITED
rHE RESULT OF DISCOVERIES IN THE
OIL INDUSTRY.


OIL INDUSTRY.
Amazing Number Of Things Which Have
Seen Taken From Petroleum Residue
Progress of the Art-New York the Con-
tire of the Work.
Among the manufacturing industries
in the neighborhood of New York few
are larger than those connected with
the preparation of petroleum for the
market. Like thousands of other en-
terprises, the oil industry owes no
small part of its present development
TO the little savings which progressive
ingenuity has devised. The story of
the discovery and application Of nu-
merous by-products of kerosene is typ
lcal of the advance and enrichment
which modern methods and chemistry
have contributed in many and varied
fields.
When the discovery of petroleum in
quantity first permitted the use Of the
mineral on large scale, it was man.
ufactured only for the illuminating oil
which it contained. OF the Pennsyl-
vania crude oil. this constituted fifty
to fifty-four per cent, or even more;
| by one process as much as seventy
per cent. in Illuminating oil was OBJ
tanned. The remainder was all, or
practically all, waste. Gas was pro-
duced in the earlier stages of the dis
| tillation, but whatever inflammable
vapors the crude gave off before it
reached the temperature at which H.
Eliminating oil would boil, were burned,
though sometimes as fuel. Tar, pitch,
or residuum remained in the stills
after the Illuminating oil had been got
out. This was thrown away; more
often than not, run into the creeks
near the refneries. The manipulation
of petroleum was thus the manufac-
ture Of kerosene; 1t was like the separ-
alton of lead only from an ore which
also contained paying quantities of
copper, silver and gold.
For in the crude petroleum were a
variety of other substances awaiting
only isolation from the compounds
with which they were mixed. OF fluids |
more volatile than kerosene, there was
a whole group Of naphthas;' of sub
-jects less easily brought to boil, there |
was such products as paraffine, par
affine oil, vaseline, wide variety of |
other lubricating oils. and number of |
sorts of pitch. Some Of these were to
DE had simply by condensing and saw
ing the vapors given off by distillation.
at different degrees of heat; some
were available only after special pro-
cesses supplementary to distillation,
had been carried out. In almost all |
cases, the product, once separated from
other components- of the petroleum
or it's distillates, needed to be careful
ly refined.
Little time passed before kerosene
ceased to be the only material for
which crude oil was treated by water,
acid, alkali and fire. The chemistry
Of the substance was fairly well known
before the discovery of the great Penn
sylvania fields in 1861. A substance
very much like petroleum had been
distilled in the late forties from the BIZ
luminous camel found In parts of
Scotland. Even the heavy fluid OBJ
tanned by heating this shale to about
800 degrees Fahrenheit and condens-
ing the vapors resulting, the Scotch
were making an illum-
mating oil already in 1S4S. For nearly
forty years the competition has pro-
ceeded, though ever, to be sure, with
growing proof that the British coal
oil, despite economies of manufacture
and ingenuities of invention, was no
match for the rock Oil of
The Americans. Partly in Scotland,
partly in America, there has been
worked out a system of the utiliza-
ion Of the by-products for which, in ,
)rilliance and completeness, there are
lew parallels in the whole history OF
technique.
The products other than kerosene /,
inally derived from petroleum show !
vide divergences in both their physical :
and the uses to which /,
hey can be put. Some of them are so :
-olatile that at ordinary temperatures !
hey take the gaseous form; others +
annot be separated from the mother :
liquid short of a red heat. Certain of
he commodities are solid; the major r
ty, however, are fluids, though here =
gain there is wide range of differ a
nee in point Of specific gravity. In s
broad way they may be grouped as Q
reducts obtained before and after
be distillation of kerosene. f
After the kerosene of commerce has q
cen boiled off, with the help of jets I
live steam, the tar, which used to q
e thrown away, is made to give up 1,
lrge proportion Of lubricating oil, Y
bout seventeen and one-half per cent. b
the total weight Of the crude ma t,
,rial. Into the condensers, along with
ais oil, there passes also about two ri
er cent. of paraffin, which can be sep a
rated by pressing after the distillate O.
as cooled, and is then ready for the Il
ltering and Other publications which c,
Itch it out finally as white wax. 81
f the whole weight of the petroleum is
.arcely ten per cent. is lost In manu- -
lcture when the process is arranged ii
extract this considerable proportion
lubricants. When the still is so
nilt and the firing conducted that the
CHEST practicable quantity about ~ ~
.venty per cent? of Illuminating oil
taken out-this by continually con- -
snsing part of the evaporated OIL p
lie waste is less than eleven and one =.
llf per cent. The products of each =
age of the process are nut to some al