Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-10-08

BurkeSvlle, N.Y., OcL. III lhe MS
tory Of the conversion OF natural
products into mod use1ui TO
man nothing seems stranger than that
petroleum was known by ancients and
known continuously for uncounted
centuries. vet it did not become an
important commercial product till so
years ago.
From the Latin words "petro', a
rock, and "oleum', OIL, We get the
name spetroleum"-"rock OIL" The
slime spoken of in the Old Tesla
ment in the construction OF the Tower
of Babel was partly eyaporated
petroleum. The inhabitants of Mn
eveh and Babylon used it as a binder
for brick as mortar is used nowadays
in making walls. Oil springs on the
island of Zante are mentioned by the
Greek historian Herodootus.-
Egyptians used petroleum in en-
balming and imported it from the
vicinity Of the Dead sea centuries be-
fore the birth of Christ. Lamps of
the Temple of Jupiter were lighted
with oil from the springs of Agrigen-
tum on the island of Sicily.
Persians. Chinese, Japanese, used it
to a limited extent 5000 years ago.
The mound builders who preceded the
American Indians of the period of
Christopher Columbus, made some use
of it. Yet when a man drilling. Tor
salt near Burkesvllle In southern
Kentucky in 1929 struck oil he was
disappointed and alarmed, and did not
realize that he had tapped what was
to become a natural resource enorm'
ously valuable.
The story as told in Burkesville is
that the salt well driller had been
several times disappointed. Making
another attempt he remarked that he
would drill till he should strike salt
or strike hell"
When he struck oil and n gusher
poured its contnets into C1mneFlan
river, caught fire and covered the sur
face of the stream with flame for 5o
miles,. he was sure that he had made
good his boast. According to the
!. legends of the Cumberlands he started
running from the scene and perhaps
still is going, as the Flying Dutchmar
still is sailing his ship.
Nowadays every drug store sens
4 clear tasteless mineral on a.
medicine, When the Burkesyrle wei
stopped burning, or when means were
found to stop it, a company begaI
bottling the crude oil and selling 1t al
medicine. while Seneca OH was be1nE
sold from the salt wells of the Pitts
burgh region and from a spring II
which oil flowed near Cuba, New York
Beeswax, tallOw, whale oil and iart
l oil were the popular illuminants II
y those days. and whales were becomlni
scarce. Crude petroleum was UNIT u
T burn indoors because of the smoke an
= odor The first patent for refining /
, was not granted till 1850. All tn
history of kerosene has been writer
since then. Gasoline is a later product
and more recent than the first manu-
~facture of gasoline is the use OF OIL a
a a binder for roads, a use someWha
= similar to that made of ii in Babylon
{ Oil and Coal Development
Oil wells have changed the aspect
I of life in the oil counties IN hentuck
much less than coal mines hav
: changed life in the coal countiet
e Coal development makes cities a busi
ness upon a far larger scale than o
: development. The former villages Q
the valleys of the Big Sandy, tn
. Cumberland and the Kentucky hav
| been made SO important by coal tha
e various cities are in hot compedtlo
. for the business that is TO be don
" in them. Cincinnati, Louisville, hnox
vile and Huntington send travehn
= men into territory which hardly wa
on the trade map till coal made 1t rlcl
.e Oil is tapped. There is a boom. IN
d oil towns are crowded DeSonu cdpaSi'
:. for n time. But when the last wlldcf
territory has been developed and I'll
oil is flowing through the pipe line
evidence of the boom consists to.
j. considerable degree in tales of sudde
" wealth which scame TO poor lar
:. holders who, in many instances left II
is mountains to settle in the Bluegra'
- where roads are good and automobile
- may be used. 1t is said commonly
lie the Bluegrass that mountain none
D. has done more than anything else
: advance the price of farm land in Il
H. central counties.
Of Many mountain farms. which rewar
ed labor so slightly that no sentlme
le for the home bound the owner to t
soil when he sold out to an oil COZ
pany or took his one-eighth ROYALTY, a
- abandoned to idle growth. Their 70
III mcr owners are Lying in the section
the state which James Lane Allen b