The words of Washington show that long before the actual birth of the petroleum industry in the United States, discerning minds were at work on the best means of turning the bituminous or petrolific deposits of this continent to practical commercial uses. In passing it may be said of Washington that he was the father of his country in a wider sense than that of having been the victorious general who made the Republic possible, and its first executive head. He was its earliest influential prophet of the power that was to be born of the unlimited natural resources of what was then the “hinterland” of the original commonwealth. During the first five decades of the nineteenth century there were a considerable number of Americans, less eminent than he--explorers, scientists and business men of imagination who looked to petroleum as a potential resource of national wealth. And speculations of this kind were not confined to the United States. In Great Britain and other countries processes were patented for the refining of mineral oils. The main purpose in view was the development of a substitute for sperm oils in anticipation of the decline of the whaling industry, which had become the main source of illuminants and lubricants. In America, also, petroleum had its recognized medicinal uses, the traditions of which had been acquired from the Indians. Thus, in the thirties, “Seneca Oil” produced at Lake Seneca, New York; and “American Medicinal Oil,” a Kentucky preparation, were familiar household remedies, especially as embrocations for burns, sores and rheumatic affections. The casual use of petroleum as a basis for proprietary medicines had, as will be seen, an interesting bearing on the future development of the industry; but the great factor which led to the production and utilization of petroleum on a large scale was a natural phenomenon already alluded to--its alliance with salt or brine deposits. Had not the growing American population been compelled to secure adequate quantities of salt by boring and establishing brine wells, it is possible that the Pennsylvania oil discoveries, with which the real history of the modern petroleum industry begins, might have been indefinitely delayed. During the first half of the nineteenth century five different states had salt industries based on the boring process--Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. In connection with most of these wells petroleum occasionally appeared, usually to the annoyance and embarrassment of the operators. In the light of future events it is interesting to note that sometimes the presence of the dark and evil-smelling liquid led to the abandonment and condemnation of a salt property. Nevertheless, it was the machinery devised for the purpose of boring for brine that enabled men like Drake and other petroleum pioneers to achieve their revolutionary discoveries.