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OZOKERITE, OR EARTH-WAX.

By WILLIAM L. LAY.

ON THE DEPOSITS OF EARTH WAX (OZOKERITE) IN EUROPE AND AMERICA.

[Footnote: Abstract from a paper read before the New York Academy of
Sciences.]


There exists a large mining and manufacturing industry in Austria, that
of ozokerite, or earth-wax, which has nothing like it in any other part
of the known world, an industry that supplies Europe with a part of its
beeswax, without the aid of the bees. It may not be generally known that
the mining of petroleum was a profitable industry in Austria long before
it was in this country. In 1852, a druggist near Tarnow distilled the
oil and had an exhibit of it in the first World's Fair in London.
In America, the first borings were made in 1859. Indeed, the use of
petroleum as an illuminator was common at a very early age in the
world's history. In Persia at Baku, in India on the Irawada, also in the
Crimea, and on the river Kuban in Russia, petroleum has been used
in lamps for thousands of years. At Baku the fire worshipers have a
never-ceasing flame, which has burned from time immemorial. The mines of
ozokerite are located in Austrian Poland, now known as Galicia. Near the
city of Drohabich, on the railway line running from Cracow to Lemberg,