关于学校生活英语短文

Oil Refining
An important new industry, oil refining, grew after the Civil war. Crude oil, or petroleum - a dark, thick ooze from the earth - had been known for hundreds of years, but little use had ever been made of it. In the 1850's Samuel M. Kier, a manufacturer in western Pennsylvania, began collecting the oil from local seepages and refining it into kerosene. Refining, like smelting, is a process of removing impurities from a raw material.
Kerosene was used to light lamps. It was a cheap substitute for whale oil, which was becoming harder to get. Soon there was a large demand for kerosene. People began to search for new supplies of petroleum.
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 " Drake's Folly". But when he had drilled down about 70 feet(21 meters), Drake struck oil. His we