Oil Instead of Coal

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jul 1, 1886

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 12, No. 25.

Oil Instead of Coal.

"THERE is a probability that before a very long period oil may come into general use as fuel on locomotives and steamers. Some years ago this did not seem likely, but the marvelous increase recently reported from many parts of the globe in the production of petroleum upsets all former calculations. Within the past ten years the yield from the wells in the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea has increased over 15,000 per cent., a steady gain in the production of over 1,500 per cent. per annum. The Baku wells in Russia now yield over 500,000 tons a year, and one well that has been bored in that vicinity is capable of discharging 8,000 tons a day, and will do so when the proper machinery is provided. The main objection heretofore to the use of petroleum as fuel for steamers and locomotives has been the cost; but if the oil springs up as freely as water the expense must decrease. I feel warranted, therefore, in predicting that the day is not far distant when oilers will take the place of coal-passers on many railroad and steamship lines."

This language was used by a railroad engineer, in response to the inquiry of a New York Mail and Express reporter, as to whether it was likely that the substitution of petroleum for wood and coal, on some of the Russian railroads, would have any effect in changing the present system of generating steam in this country. This subject is now being seriously agitated in England, especially by the owners and agents of the steamship lines which ply to India and China by way of the Suez Canal. The most sanguine believers in the virtues of petroleum as fuel for sea-going vessels have this programme: Steamers bound east from America will fill their bunkers at New York with petroleum from the oil regions of Pennsylvania; in England they will "oil" with American or Russian petroleum; at Suez, with the Russian or Egyptian article; at Singapore, with petroleum from Burmah; and at Hongkong, with Japanese petroleum. The recent discovery of petroleum in abundance on the west coast of the Red Sea has supplied the missing link in the long chain of travel.—Sel.