物中收集石油并将它炼成煤油。与冶炼矿石一样，石油提炼是一个从未加工的原料中除去杂质的过程。煤油被用来点灯。它是鲸油的一种便宜的替代品，而鲸油正变得越来越难以获得。不久就产生了对煤油的大量需求。人们开始寻找新的石油供应。
The first oil well was drilled by E.L. Drake, a retired railroad conductor. In 1859 he began drilling in Titusville, Pennsylvania. The whole venture seemed so impractical and foolish that onlookers called it \drilled down about 70 feet (21 meters), Drake struck oil. His well began to yield 20 barrels of crude oil a day.News of Drake's success brought oil prospectors to the scene.By the early 1860‘s these wildcatters were drilling for \over western Pennsylvania. The boom rivaled the California gold rush of 1848 in its excitement and Wild West atmosphere. And it brought far more wealth to the prospectors than any gold rush.
第一口油井为E·L·瑞克，一个退休的火车检票员所钻得。1859年他开始在宾西法尼亚的泰特斯维尔钻井。整个的这项冒险事业看起来是如此不现实和愚蠢以致旁观者称之为―鸭子的蠢行‖。（译者注：Drake's Folly，drake在这里意含双关，即指瑞克的名字，又指该词的本义即鸭子。）但当瑞克往下钻至70英尺（21米）的时候，他发现了石油。他的油井从此每天生产20桶原油。瑞克成功的消息将石油勘探者们吸引到现场。截止到19世纪60年代早期，这些冒险者为寻找―黑色的金子‖钻探遍了整个宾西法尼亚西部。这项繁荣的事业在刺激性和粗犷的西部气氛上可与1848年的加州淘金热相媲美，而且它为勘探者带来了远超过淘金潮的财富。
Crude oil could be refined into many products. For some years kerosene continued to be the principal one. It was sold in grocery stores and door-to-door. In the 1880's refiners learned how to make other petroleum products such as waxes and lubricating oils. Petroleum was not then used to make gasoline or heating oil.
原油能被提炼成许多产品。多年以来煤油一直是主要的一种产品。它在杂货店中出售由人挨户推销。十九世纪八十年代炼油者们懂得了生产其它石油产品，如蜡和润滑油。那时石油还没有被用来制造汽油或采暖装置用油
BBC英
petroleum [pi'tr?ulj?m]
n.[U]石油
smelt [smelt]
vbl. 1.[ smell ]的过去式及过去分词 v.[T] 1.熔炼，提炼（矿石） n. 1.银白鱼；胡瓜鱼
drill [dril]
n.[C]1.钻头，冲子；钻床，钻机2.（军事、体育、语言等的）操练；演习；练习；训练；操
练（或训练等）方法3.(the drill)【口】正确的规定程序，正确方法，常规4.钻孔声，刺耳的声音5.（寄生于牡蛎等软体动物壳内食其肉的）尾角螺v.[T]1.在...上打眼（或钻孔）；打（眼），钻（孔）2.钻除，钻出3.刺穿；【口】用子弹打穿，击中，枪杀；朝...射击4.操练；作...演习；练习；训练5.
barrel ['b?r?l]
n. [C]1.（中间粗两端细的）大桶2.一桶的量；（液量单位）桶(+of)3.枪管；炮筒4.筒形物；
笔杆；活塞筒；羽毛管5.（牛，马的）躯干6.【口】大量，许多(+of)v.[T] 1.将...装桶v.[I] 1.【美】【俚】高速行进
prospector ['pr?spekt?]
n. 探勘者,采矿者
wildcatter ['waildk?t?(r)]
n. 投机份子
ooze [u:z]
v.[I]1.（浓液等）慢慢地冒出，渗出v.[T]1. 使（液体）缓缓流出n.【地质】软泥
Pennsylvania [pensil'veinj?]
n. 宾夕凡尼亚州
kerosene ['ker?si:n]
n. 煤油，火油，灯油
Titusville
pla.泰特斯维尔{TIX,美国}
lubricating ['lu:brikeiti?]
润滑
seepage ['si:pid?]
n. 渗流,渗出的量
国史纪录片（五）：King Death 灾难中的英国（大三）
BBC关于英国历史的纪录片《BBC英国史 A History of Britain》
对于一个不了解英国历史的人来说，本片是很好的教材。本片再现了英国文明的成长历程，从巨石文化的新石器时代到辉煌的伊丽莎白时代，穿越17世纪暴乱的国内战争到日不落大不列颠帝国。这是一个生动的、有些情景可以说是血腥的故事。《A History of Britain》由15个章节组成，喜欢英式英语发音的人士必须收藏的一套材料。 第05章：King Death 灾难中的英国（1348——1500）
这是一个关于黑死病的故事——一个肮脏的疾病在一周内传遍整个英国。 英语字幕文本：
In the summer of 1348, the English could be forgiven for thinking themselves unconquerable.
They had vanquished the old enemies, the Scots and the French. Their king, Edward III, seemed the most powerful ruler in Europe.
But they would be conquered, and by a king against whom neither longbows nor warships offered any defence... King Death.
His weapon was plague, and by the end of his terrible campaign, almost half the people of Britain would be dead.
The country would survive the trauma, but first it had to undergo a purgatory of unimaginable misery, because hard on the heels of pestilence would come rebellion and civil war.
The century of plague was a pilgrimage through pain, and this is the story of that journey.
Yersinia pestis, the germ of plague, came to Britain in the guts of infected fleas. They were hidden away in cargoes of grain, bales of cloth and in the fur of black rats.
The most probable point of entry was Melcombe Regis, near Weymouth. By the time it got to the great ports of Southampton and Bristol, there were already stories from traumatised cities of Italy as to how and where it had begun - in the East, on the plains of central Asia, another of the horrors carried on the backs of the Mongol hordes.
The plague cut a swathe of destruction eastwards to China and India and westwards into Crimea and Turkey.
At Caffa, the Tartars had thrown infected bodies over the city walls to hasten the surrender of the defending Genoese, a first in the annals of biological warfare. Once it arrived by sea in Italy, it spread quickly into mainland Europe.
There had been devastating calamities before visited on Britain - countless numbers died in the apocalyptic famine of 1315 - but it was the merciless, indiscriminate swiftness of the plague's progress which so unhinged the cities and villages caught in its onslaught. No one, rich or poor, could escape.
This is how Welsh poet Jeuan Gethin saw it, waiting for his own infection, which, sure enough, came in 1349.
We see death coming into our midst like foul smoke.
A plague which cuts off the young, a rootless phantom which has no mercy. Woe is me of the shilling in the armpit.
It is of the form of an apple, like the head of an onion. Great is its seething, like a burning cinder. A grievous thing of ashy colour.
It is an ugly eruption that comes with unseemly haste.
They are like a shower of peas, the early ornaments of Black Death.
It took about six days from the bite of an infected flea for the tell-tale swellings, the buboes, to appear on a victim's neck, groin or armpit, accompanied by violent fever and agonising pain.