The exigencies of space have prevented my dealing, excepting in the most brief manner, with this interesting subject: I only hope I have succeeded in showing that, in times of war, as well as in those of peace, petroleum products occupy the position of first importance.
CHAPTER XII
THE SCOTTISH SHALE-OIL INDUSTRY
In view of the great interest which is now being centred in the production of petroleum in the British Isles—thus making this country to a large extent less dependent upon foreign sources of supply—the Shale-oil Industry of Scotland is assuming a new importance, for the reason that it is in the direction of the development of new oil-shale areas in several parts of the country that experts look with a great amount of confidence.
It is specially interesting, therefore, to deal at some length with the growth of the industry, the methods by which the oil shales are operated, and the prospects for its extension.
The name of Dr. James Young, of Renfrewshire, will ever be associated with the commercial exploitation of the oil-bearing shales in the Midlothians, for it was due to his enterprise that the Scottish shale-oil industry really owed its birth and much of its later development. It was while Young was managing a chemical works at Liverpool that his attention was drawn to small flows of oil which came from a coal seam at Alfreton, in Derbyshire. This was in 1847, and after experimenting with the liquid, Young succeeded in extracting therefrom on a commercial scale both a light burning oil and a lubricant, as well as wax. When the supply became exhausted, Dr. Young had an idea to imitate the natural processes by which he believed the oil had been formed. The outcome of this was the well-known Young patent for obtaining paraffin oil and other products from bituminous coals at slow distillation.
The Young process was utilized with much success in the United States until such time as it became unprofitable owing to the largely increasing production in America of liquid oils obtained direct from the earth. It was about this time that a bituminous mineral known as Boghead coal, and existing in the Midlothians, was discovered, and from this Young secured upwards of 100 gallons of oil from each ton treated, but soon this mineral was, in a practical sense, exhausted, and so the bituminous shales, now known as oil-shales, came in for attention. Before passing away from Dr. Young’s services in connection with the establishment of the Scottish shale-oil industry, it should be mentioned that he figures very largely in more than one of the earlier Scottish shale concerns. He founded the Bathgate Oil Company, which, in the zenith of its operations, treated 1,000 tons of shale daily, this Company being later merged into the Young’s Paraffin Light and Mineral Oil Company, Ltd., one of the large Scottish shale-oil undertakings and well known throughout the world to-day.
The Scottish shale-oil fields, as exploited to-day, cover a belt of territory which is about 6 miles broad and stretches from Dalmeny and Abercorn, on the Firth of Forth, southwards across the fertile tract between the River Almond and the Bathgate Hills to the moorland district of Cobbinshaw and Tarbrax. Throughout this region there are various important mining centres, such as Broxburn, Uphall, East Calder, Mid-Calder, West Calder, and Addiwell; and in connection with the shale-oil industry, upwards of 25,000 persons now find regular employment.
The shale measures on which the shale-oil industry depends, form part of the calciferous sandstone series of Mid and West Lothian and the southern coast of Fife. The carboniferous system of Scotland may be arranged in descending order in four divisions, as under—
4. Coal measures, comprising red sandstone, shales, and marls with no workable coals, underlaid by white and grey sandstones and shales with numerous valuable coal seams and ironstones.
3. Millstone grit, consisting of coarse sandstones, with beds of fireclay, a few thin coals, ironstones, and thin limestones.