Editing Kerosene (section)

===Illuminating oil from coal and oil shale===
[[File:Abraham Gesner Photo.png|thumb|left|[[Abraham Pineo Gesner|Abraham Gesner]] distilled kerosene from bituminous coal and oil shale experimentally in 1846; commercial production followed in 1854.]]
Although "coal oil" was well known by industrial chemists at least as early as the 1700s as a byproduct of making [[coal gas]] and coal tar, it burned with a smoky flame that prevented its use for indoor illumination. In cities, much indoor illumination was provided by piped-in [[coal gas]], but outside the cities, and for spot lighting within the cities, the lucrative market for fueling indoor lamps was supplied by [[whale oil]], specifically that from [[sperm whale]]s, which burned brighter and cleaner.<ref name=GlobeAndMail2019-10-04/><ref>Samuel T. Pees, [http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Whale/whale.html Whale oil versus the others] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180104151055/http://www.petroleumhistory.org/OilHistory/pages/Whale/whale.html |date=4 January 2018 }}, Petroleum History Institute, accessed 17 November 2014.</ref>

Canadian geologist [[Abraham Pineo Gesner]] claimed that in 1846, he had given a public demonstration in [[Charlottetown]], [[Prince Edward Island]] of a new process he had discovered.<ref name=GlobeAndMail2019-10-04/><ref group=note>In his book of 1861 and its second edition of 1865, Gesner claimed to have demonstrated ''liquid'' kerosene – an "oil" – in 1846 during his public lectures on Prince Edward's Island.  
*  Gesner, Abraham (1861) [https://archive.org/stream/apracticaltreat02gesngoog#page/n16/mode/2up ''A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and Other Distilled Oils.'']  New York, New York, USA:  Bailliere Brothers, p. 9.
*  Gesner, Abraham; Gesner, George Weltden (1865) [https://books.google.com/books?id=KTkKAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA9 ''A Practical Treatise on Coal, Petroleum, and Other Distilled Oils''], 2nd ed., New York, New York, USA:  Bailliere Brothers, p. 9.
However, John Butt characterized Gesner's book as " … a piece of propaganda designed to get people to believe that he had been constantly interested in inventing burning oil from 1846 to 1854".  Butt also stated that "No independent documentary proof has ever been produced to support Gesner's claim."   Furthermore, "He [Gesner] omitted to mention that kerosene had first been used to describe an illuminating gas."
* Butt, John (1963) [http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3894/1/1963ButtPhD.pdf "James Young, Scottish Industrialist and Philanthropist"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210225095733/http://theses.gla.ac.uk/3894/1/1963ButtPhD.pdf |date=25 February 2021 }} PhD thesis (University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK), p. 227.
As late as 1850, Gesner promoted his "kerosene" as an illuminating ''gas'':  
* In his U.S. patent of 1850, Gesner called the product of his distillations an "illuminating gas", not an oil:  Gesner, Abraham [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00007052 "Manufacture of illuminating-gas from bitumen"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210224124608/https://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00007052 |date=24 February 2021 }} U.S. Patent no. 7,052 (issued: 29 January 1850).
* In his prospectus of 1850, Gesner repeatedly identified "kerosene" as a ''gas'', not an oil:  Gesner, Abraham (1850) [https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t9960mm6j;view=1up;seq=7 "Prospectus of Gesner's patent kerosene gas, obtained from bitumen, asphaltum, or mineral pitch"]. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210301004556/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t9960mm6j;view=1up;seq=7 |date=1 March 2021 }} New York, New York, USA:  Trehern & Williamson.</ref> He heated coal in a [[retort]], and distilled from it a clear, thin fluid that he showed made an excellent lamp fuel. He coined the name "kerosene" for his fuel, a contraction of ''keroselaion'', meaning ''wax-oil''.<ref name="russell" >{{Cite book
| last = Russell  | first = Loris S.
| title = A Heritage of Light: Lamps and Lighting in the Early Canadian Home
| publisher = University of Toronto Press
| year = 2003
| isbn = 978-0-8020-3765-7
}}</ref> The cost of extracting kerosene from coal was high.

Gesner recalled from his extensive knowledge of [[New Brunswick]]'s geology a naturally occurring [[Bitumen|asphalt]]um called [[albertite]]. He was blocked from using it by the New Brunswick coal conglomerate because they had coal extraction rights for the province, and he lost a court case when their experts claimed albertite was a form of coal.<ref>{{Cite book
| last = Black
| first = Harry
| title = Canadian Scientists and Inventors
| publisher = Pembroke Publishers
| year = 1997
| isbn = 978-1-55138-081-0
| url-access = registration
| url = https://archive.org/details/canadianscientis0000blac
}}</ref> In 1854, Gesner moved to [[Newtown Creek]], [[Long Island]], [[New York (state)|New York]]. There, he secured backing from a group of businessmen. They formed the North American Gas Light Company, to which he assigned his patents.

Despite clear priority of discovery, Gesner did not obtain his first kerosene patent until 1854, two years after [[James Young (chemist)|James Young]]'s United States patent.<ref>Gesner, Abraham, "Improvement in kerosene burning-fluids", U.S. Patent no.s [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011203 11,203] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612113021/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011203 |date=12 June 2018 }}; [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011204 11,204] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612112937/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011204 |date=12 June 2018 }}; [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011205 11,205] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612112812/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?docid=00011205 |date=12 June 2018 }} (issued:  27 June 1854).</ref><ref>Young, James, [http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00008833 "Improvement in making paraffine-oil"], {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612112810/http://pdfpiw.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=00008833 |date=12 June 2018 }} U.S. Patent no. 8,833 (issued:  23 March 1852).</ref> Gesner's method of purifying the distillation products appears to have been superior to Young's, resulting in a cleaner and better-smelling fuel. Manufacture of kerosene under the Gesner patents began in New York in 1854 and later in [[Boston]]—being distilled from [[bituminous coal]] and [[oil shale]].<ref name=russell/> Gesner registered the word "Kerosene" as a trademark in 1854, and for several years, only the North American Gas Light Company and the Downer Company (to which Gesner had granted the right) were allowed to call their lamp oil "Kerosene" in the United States.<ref>{{Cite book
| last = Asbury
| first = Herbert
| title = The golden flood: an informal history of America's first oil field
| publisher = Alfred A. Knopf
| year = 1942
| page = 35
}}</ref>

In 1848, [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[chemist]] [[James Young (chemist)|James Young]] experimented with oil discovered seeping in a coal mine as a source of lubricating oil and illuminating fuel. When the seep became exhausted, he experimented with the dry distillation of coal, especially the resinous "boghead coal" ([[torbanite]]). He extracted a number of useful liquids from it, one of which he named ''paraffine oil'' because at low temperatures, it congealed into a substance that resembled paraffin wax. Young took out a patent on his process and the resulting products in 1850, and built the first truly commercial oil-works in the world at [[Bathgate]] in 1851, using oil extracted from locally mined torbanite, shale, and bituminous coal. In 1852, he took out a United States patent for the same invention. These patents were subsequently upheld in both countries in a series of lawsuits, and other producers were obliged to pay him royalties.<ref name=russell/>