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TOEFL Directory > TOEFL writing > 35.Oil Refining
35.Oil Refining
An important new industry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war. Crude
oil, or petroleum - a dark, thick ooze from the earth - had been known
for hundreds of years, but little use had ever been made of it. In the
1850's Samuel M. Kier, a manufacturer in western Pennsylvania, began
collecting the oil from local seepages and refining it into kerosene.
Refining, like smelting, is a process of removing impurities from a raw
material.
Kerosene was used to light lamps. It was a cheap substitute for whale
oil, which was becoming harder to get. Soon there was a large demand
for kerosene. People began to search for new supplies of petroleum.
The first oil well was drilled by E.L. Drake, a retired railroad
conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The
whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it
?Drake's Folly? But when he had drilled down about 70 feet(21
meters), Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude
oil a day.
News of Drake's success brought oil prospectors to the scene. By the
early 1860's these wildcatters were drilling for ?black gold?all
over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of
1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more
wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.
Crude oil could be refined into many products. For some years kerosene
continued to be the principal one. It was sold in grocery stores and
door-to-door. In the 1880's refiners learned how to make other
petroleum products such as waxes and lubricating oils. Petroleum was not
then used to make gasoline or heating oil.
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