Jupiter commanded Vulcan to split open his skull with a sharp axe, and
how the warlike virgin leaped in full maturity from the cleft in the
brain, thoroughly armed and ready for deeds of martial daring,
brandishing her glittering weapons with fiery energy, and breaking at
once into the wild Pyrrhic dance. We refer to this myth, bearing, as it
doubtless does, an important moral in its bosom, as suggestive of the
sudden and gigantic proportions of a traffic which has recently loomed
up in the region of Western Pennsylvania. The petroleum trade has worn
no swaddling bands, acknowledged no leading strings, but sprung at once
into full maturity. In less than one year from the moment of its
inception, it has fairly eclipsed the Whale Fishery, gray with time, and
strong through the energy and vigor with which it has ever been
prosecuted. And who can measure its extent in the future, since it can
only be limited by the sources of the supply flowing in the depths of
the laboratories of the Great Chemist?

Petroleum, in some form or other of its various developments, is no new
substance in the world's history. More than two thousand years before
the Christian era, we read of its existence in the days of the builders
of Babel, when men sought to realize the dreams of the Titans, and would
scale heaven itself in their insane folly. It may have been used in the
building of the ark. Herodotus informs us it was largely used in the
construction of the walls and towers of Babylon. Diodorus Siculus
confirms this testimony. Great quantities of it were found on the banks
of the river Issus, one of the tributaries of the Euphrates, in the form
of asphaltum. By its aid were reared those mighty walls and hanging
gardens which filled the heart of Nebuchadnezzar with such a dream of
pride as he exclaimed: 'Is this not great Babylon that I have built?'

And from those days so ancient, when history would be dim and obscure,