Petroleum

Lidgett, Albert, 1876-1936Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.5

Word count: 273K words
Chapters: 28

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Petroleum by Albert LidgettAuthor: Lidgett, Albert, 1876-1936,Language: English, Class: TN: Technology: Mining engineering, Metallurgy, Release Date: Aug 16, 2016

Editor's review

This book, Petroleum, is a popular technical work on petroleum from the early twentieth century. Its author, Albert Lidgett, introduces the origins, extraction, refining, and uses of petroleum in a tone aimed at general readers. The book lacks the complex data of the contemporary energy industry, yet it lets readers see the basic shape of the petroleum industry in its early stage and the limits of technical understanding at the time. Its value lies mainly at the level of historical documentation: readers can learn how people a century ago understood petroleum, how they described drilling and refining processes, and what concerns about resource development occupied that era. The style is expository, with a moderate density of terminology. It is suitable as supplementary reading for the history of energy and industry, and also for readers interested in early technical writing. It should be read with a historical eye, distinguishing the book's descriptions from today's industry knowledge.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the history of the petroleum industry and energy history
People who want to understand the style of early twentieth-century popular technical writing
Students and researchers who need public-domain English industrial-history materials for supplementary reference
Readers who enjoy old technical books and observing how industry understanding evolved

Not a good fit for

Practitioners seeking the latest contemporary petroleum exploration and refining technology
Readers expecting systematic energy-economics analysis and data
Beginners who find English reading difficult and need a Chinese translation

Reading tips

First browse the table of contents and grasp the book's overall sequence: petroleum origins, extraction, refining, uses
While reading, mark outdated technical descriptions and compare them with today's industry knowledge
You may combine public-domain industrial-history materials to understand the background of the era before reading the main text
There is no need to read word by word; browsing chapters of interest is enough to gain historical information

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book about modern petroleum technology?

No. It is a popular technical work from the early twentieth century, introducing the understanding of petroleum origins, extraction, and refining at that time. Many specific technical descriptions are outdated; its value lies mainly in historical documentation, not as a contemporary technical reference.

Is it suitable as an introductory book for the energy industry?

Not very suitable as a contemporary primer. It offers a historical perspective on the industry's early appearance but lacks modern exploration, refining, and energy-economics content. If your goal is to understand today's petroleum industry, choose contemporary textbooks; if your goal is historical understanding, this book has supplementary value.

How difficult is the English?

This is a public-domain English book with an expository style and moderate terminology density, without Chinese annotations. Readers with general English reading ability can finish it with a dictionary; those with weaker English may find it difficult and are advised to try one chapter first before deciding.

Comments

Find this book

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Lidgett, Albert, 1876-1936 Author

Lidgett, Albert (1876–1936) is an English-language author about whom little biographical information survives. His name and dates appear in bibliographic records, but details such as nationality, education and professional career cannot be confirmed from publicly available sources, and the limited public record makes it impossible to sketch a full life. Only one work can be traced, Petroleum, which suggests that his writing concerned this industrial resource, possibly covering its extraction, properties, uses or related industry knowledge. Judging by the plain, direct title, the book was probably aimed at general readers or beginners and emphasized informative exposition rather than advanced theoretical argument. Given the scarcity of his output and the lack of documentation, Lidgett's influence on scholarship and readers is very limited; his name survives mainly in bibliographic records as the author of an early English work on petroleum, of use to those studying the history of petroleum literature and popular scientific writing.