Whale oil
Whale oil was needed as lamp oil for illumination. It burned with a bright, smokeless flame that nothing else was known to match. Chemists had known how to make oil from coal (coal oil) or turpentine (camphene) for many years, but they burned with sooty flames, making them unsuitable for indoor illumination. The only viable competitor to whale oil was “burning oil,” a mixture of camphene and alcohol, which burned bright and smokeless, but which was volatile and prone to explode. Fire insurance policies charged higher premiums for buildings in which camphene-based lamp oil was used. The city of Lowell, Massachusetts banned the storage of products containing camphene within 200 yards of any building in the city.