Extraction and Application of Petroleum
Petroleum is now the lifeblood of industry and transportation, s well as the power source of daily life. Ancestors of the Chinese nation were the first in the world to discover, extract and use oil. Yi
Jing (The Book of Changes), which is one of the earliest Chinese classics and dates back to more than 3,000 years ago, says, "There is fire in the marshes". In Hart Shu (History. of the Han Dynasty), it was recorded, "There is inflammable water on the Weishui River in Gaonu County." Gaonu County was situated in today's Yan'an, and the Weishui is a branch of the Yanshui River. It is in this area that petroleum was first discovered, extracted and used in ancient China. Fan Ye, a historian of the Jin Dynasty, writes in his Hou Hart Shu (History, of the Later Han Dynasty), "To the south of Yanshou County seat there is a mountain, where a spring in the rocks gushes black water that is not potable, and local people call it stone paint." In the Tang Dynasty, writer Duan Chengshi gives more detailed description of petroleum in his work Youyang Zazu (Miscellanies of Youyang), "In the Weishui River of Gaonu County there is a greasy matter like paint flowing on the water. Local people get it to grease their wagons and burns it for lighting."
In the llth century, scientist Shen Kuo (1031-1095) wrote much more about petroleum in his Mengxi Bitan (Dream Pool Essays), describing its characteristics, applications, and prospects. Shen had inspected the petroleum output in Fuyan County when he served in the government of Yanzhou. He writes, "In Fuyan County there is shi you. I know its soot can be used to made ink stick. I tried and made an ink stick, which is black and shining, far better than that made of pine wood soot...This thing will surely have wide applications in the world. As the rock oil abounds in the earth, its supply is ample, unlike pine wood, which may someday be exhausted." Shen Kuo was the first scientist to christen petroleum as shi you (literally meaning rock oil, the term for petroleum now still used in the Chinese language), and he accurately predicted its bright future of wide applications.
China was also the first to refine oil. In the Northern Song Dynasty a workshop was set up in Kaifeng to produce refined oil for the military. The troops filled the refined oil in iron cans and threw them toward the enemy troops, causing a big fire. This was the first "fire bomb" in the world. China was also the first to drill oil wells in the world. Ancient Chinese first found natural gas when they excavated rock salt. Zhang Hua of the Jin Dynasty wrote in his Bowu Zhi (Records of Curiosities) how people in Zigong of Sichuan excavated natural gas and used it in boiling rock salt solution. In 1041, a well with diameter about the size of a bowl and depth at several dozen feet was drilled for salt production. The tool used to dig the well was a "circular blade," the principle of which is similar to that of today's drilling machine. In the 13~ century the first well for oil production was drilled, and in the late Ming Dynasty a 100-meter well, the first ever in the world, was drilled in Leshan of Sichuan.
Song Yingxing (1587-?), a scholar of the Ming Dynasty, wrote in detail the methods of extracting petroleum in his Tiangong Kaiwu (The Exploitation of the Works of Nature). Song's book arrived in Japan in the 16th century and in Europe in the 18" century. Outside China, the Russians drilled their first oil well in 1848 and the Americans did theirs in 1859. |
