CHAPTER II

OIL: ITS ORIGIN, DISCOVERY, AND HISTORY

The Great Producing States before 1914 and in 1921

Oil is found naturally in different forms. Sometimes it occurs as a volatile liquid at ordinary temperatures; it is then known as naphtha. Sometimes the volatile principles are only given off at higher temperatures; it is then called petroleum or rock-oil. Sometimes also it appears in a semi-solid form, asphalt, its volatile properties having already evaporated.

It is very rarely that oil is found on the surface or gushing up by itself without the help of pumps. It is usually met with at a great depth underground, in pockets in which oil and gas are found above water. Thus, in order to detect its presence, it is necessary to make borings. When one reaches a pocket in the neighbourhood of the gas, the latter escapes by the outlet which is offered. If the boring first reaches oil, and if the pressure of gas is sufficient, the oil gushes out and forms a spring. This is what happened in the Caucasus, where certain wells spouted up to a height of eighty metres through the borings made by the prospectors. More often the gas pressure is not sufficient to raise the liquid to the surface, and it is necessary to install pumps driven by steam to empty the pocket. At the time of the boring, when the cylindrical metal drill, driven vertically by a metal cable and held vertical by the derrick (a sort of pyramidal framework of metal), reaches the deposit, the gas which has been accumulating for thousands of years escapes, driving, pushing, sucking up the oil, and making a fountain, a gusher, a sort of artesian well. The oil is led away in metal pipes, vertical till they reach the surface, horizontal to the refineries, ports, or other destinations. Once the well is capped, it is not touched again; it is alone in the desert, and only a metre records its daily output, while hundreds of thousands of men are obliged to work underground to wrest coal from the bowels of the earth by the strength of their arms!

The depth of the wells varies from 200 to 1,600 metres, according to the region. The duration of the flow is essentially variable, depending upon the magnitude of the deposit of oil. But it goes without saying that when a spring has flowed for seven years more or less, like the first one exploited by the _Mexican Eagle_, it gives out, yielding salt water. The fact is quite ordinary, and is known in all competent circles, although it is sometimes brandished as a warning by interested people in order to lower the value of certain oil shares. One often hears of "pools," "rivers," or "veritable lakes of oil." These expressions are most inaccurate. Apart from certain exceptions, such as the famous well of the _Colombia_ in Rumania in 1913, the deposits of oil are neither rivers nor pools. They are _actually solid layers of sandstone, often very hard, impregnated, saturated with oil_. This sandstone is very porous and contains thousands of cavities or pockets enclosing the precious "rock-oil." Its thickness varies from the usual 30 or 50 metres (giving wells of a yield of 200, 500, or 1,000 barrels a day) to _one kilometre_ in certain wells of the _Eagle_ (yielding 70,000 to 100,000 barrels a day, instead of 200 to 1,000). The _Eagle_ is lucky, it must be admitted, and its history is unique in the annals of oil. Only its sister company, the _Mexican Oil_, which works in the same field, but for the _Standard Oil_ group, can be compared with it.

Even a superficial examination of the chemical composition of oil, a hydrocarbon, in which the carbon, in a proportion of 80 to 88 per cent., is combined with hydrogen, and sometimes with a little oxygen, reveals in this compound a marvellous source of thermal energy, which may manifest itself in various ways. For, from the greenish-brown oil which is lighter than water, no less than 128 chemical compounds are obtained, which are used in forty different industries. From the retort in which the crude oil is distilled comes an infinity of substances of basic importance in modern industry.

* * * * *

Although the intensive use of oil and its industrial applications are of comparatively recent date, the discovery of deposits of petroleum goes back to remote antiquity.

The history of oil is as old as the world, since there is already mention of it in the Book of Genesis. The wells of Baku were known long before the Christian era. In the peninsula of Apsheron, where they are situated, arose the cult of Zoroaster and the fire-worshippers. According to the latter, the flames which escaped from the soil would burn until the end of the world. They were, at any rate, famed throughout the world nearly three thousand years ago.

The Greeks and Romans were acquainted with oil. The latter called it _bitumen_. In Low Latin it was _petroleus_, from _petra_--stone, and _oleum_--oil; and the word has come down to us through the scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries who adopted it.

In ancient mythology and literature oil is often mentioned. It is probably with oil that the Centaur--to avenge himself upon Hercules--was obliged to anoint the famous shirt of Nessus! "It is not without reason," says Plutarch, "that certain authors, wishing to restore truth to legend, assert that petroleum is the substance which Medea used to smear the crown and veil that play so great a part in the tragedies; for fire does not issue from them of itself, but when they are brought near a flame fire is communicated to them by some kind of attraction with such rapidity that the eye can scarcely follow it."

Herodotus, in his works, mentions the oil-fields of Zante; Pliny those of Agrigente in Sicily; Plutarch those of Ecbatana and Babylon. "The land of Babylon," he says, "is impregnated with fire.... It is as though the soil, agitated by the fiery substances which lie concealed in its bosom, has a sort of pulse which makes it quake." When Alexander conquered these regions he was particularly astonished, in the province of Ecbatana, at "a gulf from which rivers of flame streamed continually, as though from an inexhaustible source."[5] His return to Babylon was celebrated by the burning of two parallel streams flowing through the streets. And one of his courtiers, to amuse him, caused a young man to be anointed with oil; scarcely had it touched his body when he was enveloped in flames.

The Chinese have used oil for lighting from the most distant times; Europeans since the fourteenth century. It is difficult to go further back owing to the absence of documents during the Middle Ages. But what was Greek Fire, if not oil? In the fifteenth century we find traces of its use in medicine; and even at the present time the natives of Mosul and Bagdad use some of the purer varieties, which they call "mourn," as a dressing for serious wounds. Oil has some fame as a vermifuge; as, for example, the oil of Gabiau in the south of France. A curious memoir of François Clouet, who was entrusted with the task of embalming Francis I in 1547, mentions the use of an oil ("pétrolle") in the colouring of a waxen mask made in the dead king's likeness.

In the eighteenth century Apsheron was again the astonishment of British travellers seeking a route to India. "The Russians drink it as a tonic and as a beverage," writes Jonas Hanway, who visited these regions in 1754, speaking of petroleum. "It never intoxicates. Used internally, it is also an excellent cure for gravel. Used externally, it is a valuable remedy in cases of scurvy, gout, and cramp. It is very good for removing stains from fabrics, and would be in more frequent use if it did not leave behind it an abominable smell."

Finally, the earliest settlers found oil in America, or, to be more exact, recognized the wells which had already been dug by the Indians. But it was only in the middle of the nineteenth century that the real importance of the oil-fields scattered over the globe began to be realized.

While France about 1840 made the first trial use of shale oil, and Germany in 1853 invented the oil lamp, later perfected by Laydaw of Edinburgh, "the bold and inventive spirit of Young America undeterred by a series of fruitless experiments, set itself to discover the first springs of the precious liquid in Pennsylvania." In 1858 Colonel Edward Drake, while boring a salt-water well near Tytusville, was nearly engulfed with his workmen in a jet of oily liquid, the spring of which was apparently inexhaustible, and continued to furnish several thousand litres a day. It was subsequently discovered that this liquid after a very simple process of purification, would burn with a brilliant light. The "oil fever" then seized all America and myriads of searchers rushed into the valleys of the Alleghanies in Pennsylvania.

The oil industry was created. For a long time America was the only country producing the precious oil; forty years ago she still furnished two-thirds of the world's supplies. But although the oil-fields of the Alleghanies and of Ohio were developed rapidly, they have been far surpassed by the enormous deposits of Baku. In 1898 Russia outdistanced the United States, and kept the first place until 1902, when America recovered it after a great struggle, thanks to the new oil basins of Texas, California, and the Mid-Continent, and above all those of Kansas and Oklahoma, with its famous "Glen Pool," which in 1908 produced the fantastic figure of 50,000 barrels _a day_.

Russia has never been able to retrieve her position. Her production, which in 1901 was 50 per cent. of that of the whole world, was not more than 20 per cent. two years before the War, and in 1918 had fallen to 7.86 per cent. The cause is chiefly the diminution of production of the "black region" of Baku, in the peninsula of Apsheron, which juts out into the Caspian Sea and is connected with the open seas by a railway and by a pipe 800 kilometres long, through which the annual flow of oil towards Europe before the great world catastrophe amounted to 400,000 tons. In five years the average yield of the wells diminished by 40 per cent., while the mean depth of the borings was increased by 25 per cent. It was necessary to dig more and more deeply to find less and less oil. The old oil-fields of Baku were nearing exhaustion. Now they alone furnished four-fifths of the production of Russia. That is why, in 1918, Russia lost the second place, which she had held so long, to her young rival Mexico. It is true that the two revolutions which she had to undergo in this quarter century helped the process considerably. The revolution of 1905 caused the bloody disturbances of the Caucasus: the finest factories were burnt and numerous wells destroyed. Great unrest continued incessantly in this region until the triumph of Lenin. But there are still in Russia oil-fields of very considerable extent, scarcely touched before 1914, which the world cannot afford to dispense with.[6]

The United States, Russia, Mexico, Rumania, these were, in order of importance, the four chief oil-producing countries before the War. Rumania shares with America the distinction of being the first country in which rock-oil was extracted. The same year in which Colonel Drake made his experiments at Tytusville 250 tons were extracted from a well by hand-pumping: the oil was only just below the surface. Since then Rumanian production has continually increased. It was 500,000 tons when the region of Moreni, one of the richest in the world, was discovered. Foreign capital flowed in immediately, and Rumanian production reached its highest point in 1913 with 2 million tons. The War gave it an appreciable setback; at the present time it does not come to more than half this figure.[7]

Although the production of Rumania, hampered by the lack of electricity which hinders the borings, has recovered with difficulty, that of Mexico, often a prey to civil war, has known no pause in its incredible progress. In ten years it has passed from 3 to 160 million barrels, carrying its share in world production from 1 per cent. to 23 per cent. The figures are worth quoting:--

-------+---------------------+----------------- Year. | World Production | Percentage from | 1910-21 (barrels). | Mexico only. -------+---------------------+----------------- 1910 | 328,000,000 | 1.10 1911 | 344,000,000 | 3.65 1912 | 352,500,000 | 4.70 1913 | 385,000,000 | 6.80 1914 | 400,000,000 | 5.30 1915 | 426,500,000 | 7.70 1916 | 459,500,000 | 8.70 1917 | 505,500,000 | 10.09 1918 | 515,000,000 | 12.40 1919 | 551,000,000 | 15.85 1920 | 684,000,000 | 23.35 1921 | 759,000,000 | 25.00 -------+---------------------+-----------------

It is Mexico which saves the world to-day, for the United States--the greatest producers in the world--do not even supply enough for their own consumption, and are obliged to call in the help of Mexico to make good their deficit. In spite of all their efforts, they have only succeeded, during the last three years, in increasing production by 24 per cent., while Mexico has augmented hers by 130 per cent. The other countries follow at a considerable distance. Here is the record of each for 1921:--

Barrels. United States 469,639,000 Mexico 195,064,000 Russia 28,500,000 Dutch East Indies 18,000,000 Persia 14,600,000 Rumania 8,347,000 India 6,864,000 Poland (Galicia) 3,665,000 Peru 3,568,000 Japan and Formosa 2,600,000 Trinidad 2,354,000 Argentina 1,747,000 Egypt 1,181,000 Venezuela 1,078,000 France 392,000 Germany 200,000 Canada 190,000 Italy 35,000 Algeria 3,000 Great Britain 3,000 Other countries 1,000,000

The total production was 759,000,000 barrels of 42 gallons, against 684,000,000 barrels in 1920. It exceeds 100 million tons, easily beating the records of the preceding years. If we remember that half a century ago, it was only 66,000 tons, and that _between 1913 and 1920 it has almost doubled_, we shall see what a tremendous stimulus the great world War has been.

But fears are increasingly felt. Will it be possible to satisfy the dizzy increase in the consumption of oil? And do not certain countries already fear to see the reserves contained in their soil exhausted?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 5: Plutarch's _Lives_, Alexander the Great, chap. xliv.]

[Footnote 6: Cp. chap. xvi, _The Struggle for the Oil-fields of Russia._]

[Footnote 7: Having fallen to 920,000 tons in 1919, it had increased to 1,030,086 tons in 1920 (12 per cent. increase). This slight recovery is the first noted; for six years Rumanian production steadily decreased. The worst year was 1917.]