Remembering the
unprogressive character of Chinese arts and industries, there is ground
for the belief that they may have been using this natural gas as an
illuminant these hundreds of years.
In the United States the existence of petroleum was known to the Pilgrim
Fathers, who doubtless obtained their first information of it from the
Indians, from whom, in New York and western Pennsylvania, it was called
Seneka oil. It was otherwise known as "British" oil and oil of naphtha,
and was considered "a sovereign remedy for an inward bruise."
The record of natural gas in this country is not so complete as that of
petroleum, but we learn that an important gas spring was known in West
Bloomfleld, N.Y., seventy years ago. In 1864 a well was sunk to a depth
of three hundred feet upon that vein, from which a sufficient supply
of gas was obtained to illuminate and heat the city of Rochester
(twenty-five miles distant), it was supposed. But the pipes which were
laid for that purpose, being of wood, were unfitted to withstand the
pressure, in consequence of which the scheme was abandoned; but gas from
that well is now in use as an illuminant and as fuel both in the town of
West Bloomfield and at Honeoye Falls.
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