6 Things You Never Knew About Oil
1. Oil saved the whales from extinction.
Oil’s first use was to replace whale blubber in lamps. That’s right, before oil, as early as 1645, whale oil was used to light lamps and blubber was used to make candle wax. Sperm whales had oil superior to other whales, and had larger heads filled with spermaceti, a waxy substance that made the best candles. By the 1770s, New England was exporting 3-4,000 pounds of spermaceti candles a year. But whales became less and less abundant due to excess whaling, and by the early 1850s the oil became a scarce commodity that demanded a high price.
Other forms of illumination were explored, including a form of turpentine and converting coal tar into kerosene . Finally, a professor named George Bissell conceived that “rock oil” could be turned into kerosene.
2. Oil was one of the first panaceas.
It was originally a byproduct of drilling for salt, and was considered a nuisance. It was either scooped up and disposed of, or soaked up in a rag, wrung out, and peddled as medicine. It was a cure all for everything - from headaches to rheumatism to deafness. A bottle of oil-medicine with a picture of a derrick drilling for salt gave Bissell, the same guy who figured out oil could turn into kerosene, the notion that he could use similar technology to drill for rock oil. (per An Empire of Wealth)
3. Petroleum means “rock oil” in Latin.
Yep. petra: a rock + oleum: oil.
4. Oil was first stored in whiskey barrels.
Barrels are the unit of measurement for oil (established in 1866 for tax purposes) because the first oilmen used whisky barrels to collect oil after striking their first gushers. Oil certainly gushed, and at one point it was priced down so much (or barrels were in such demand & scarcity) that the wooden barrel was worth twice as much as the oil in it. (per The Prize)
5. Oil is not actually stored or shipped in barrels.
Though it’s priced and traded in the stock market in barrels, the 42-gallon unit of measurement is just that - a unit of measurement. The introduction of the oil tanker in 1850 quickly replaced the barrel (per Energy for the 21st Century). In 1885, 99% of oil exported from the US was carried in barrels. Ten years later, almost all of it was carried in tankers that could lug the equivalent of 4 million barrels at a time.
6. Oil drink your milkshake.
The oil used on screen in There Will Be Blood was actually created using the same industrial material used by McDonald’s to thicken their milkshakes. “And I’m not kidding. That’s actually true,” said cinematographer Robert Elswit. (per CNN Oscar Blog)