Friday, May 02, 2014
Kerosene?
NecroPhiliac Radio features a book on Economic History as seen through Light. Good point overall. Artificial light was a very late development, and affordable artificial light came within living memory for most parts of the world.
But they missed part of the sequence. They said: Whale oil (and other animal and vegetable fats) served expensively for many centuries, then kerosene came along in 1800, to be replaced by electricity around 1900.
WHAT? Kerosene was a minor player in some rural areas. In Europe and most of America, coal gas was the light of the 1800s. Electricity didn't replace kerosene. Electricity replaced coal gas.
Polistra and friends remind us of the long-term dominance of illuminating gas. (Incidentally, coal gas is still around though we don't call it that. Many current natural-gas wells are drawing from coal fields, not from oil-bearing areas.)
¶ 5:15 PM 
Polistra and friends remind us of the long-term dominance of illuminating gas. (Incidentally, coal gas is still around though we don't call it that. Many current natural-gas wells are drawing from coal fields, not from oil-bearing areas.)
¶ 5:15 PM
