seems entirely so--will turn the world upside down. It is said that
petroleum can be compressed into a solid, and that three cubic feet will
represent the bulk of a ton of coal, and will last combustible as long
as fifty tons. Think of the immense saving to our merchantmen,
steamboat, and war vessels. Instead of five thousand or six thousand
tons of coal, they will have only a few petroleum sticks. No invention
of early or modern times contains such possibilities of economy in
commerce, of revolution in means of transportation, and of limitless
fortune to the lucky discoverer, as this one that promises or threatens
to displace coal, as yet the greatest factor in the world’s progress.
Here is a prize alluring enough to call out the keenest and most devoted
powers of the scientific inventor.