DID YOU KNOW?
Polish Market
877?lang=PL
April 28 2009
Poland
It is a little known fact that Ignacy Aukasiewicz (1822-1882),
a Polish chemist of Armenian origin is not only the inventor of
the paraffin lamp but was, first and foremost, the father of the
petroleum industry. At the turn of 1852, Aukasiewicz and Jan Zeh
obtained petroleum by the fractioned method of distilling crude oil,
for which Aukasiewicz tried to find practical use. The first lamp
he constructed, (the previously applied oil lamps could not be used
with petroleum) was used to illuminate his pharmacy’s window, but
the 31 July 1853 must be recognised as the official birthday of the
petroleum industry, since it was then that petrol illumination was
used for the first time during an urgent night-time operation in the
common hospital in the Ayczakiw district of Lvov city. The world’s
first crude oil mine at Bibrka near Krosno started delivering in
the next year. It belonged to the Trzecieski-Aukasiewicz crude oil
company and is still operating today.