Science: Synthetic Black Gold

The French National Research Co. announced, and careful U. S. oil men accepted it as a fact, that Chemist Audibert of Paris had succeeded in making synthetic petroleum, not as a laboratory curiosity, but by a process commercially practicable. This announcement was made and received as being far more important than other fuel-substitute discoveries lately madeĀ— coal dust in the U. S. and Germany, fagots in France (Time, Oct. 11). Submitting oxygen, hydrogen and coal to a pressure of 200 atmospheres, introducing a secret catalytic agent and filtering the result, M. Audibert had...

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