Not just Oil

Abstract

The march of civilisation can be marked, to some degree, by the extent to which man since prehistoric times has been able to provide himself with better light and better heat to protect himself from those two great enemies, darkness and cold, so that he had time and a more or less comfortable place for the pursuit of other matters. Progress down through the ages from the resinous torch and crude earthen lamps filled with animal fat used by the ancients to metal lamps using fish oil and vegetable oils, and from these to tallow candles, has run parallel with the advance of civilisation until the middle of the nineteenth century, when one of the products of petroleum, kerosine, and the development of the kerosine lamp spelled the end of the days of the whale oil industry. Kerosine is spelled with an "i " because the ending " ine " rather than " ene " is preferred, as the latter is the generic term used by chemists to define hydrocarbon compounds, e.g. ethylene, benzene, naphthalene, and so forth.