Whale Oil, Beef, Hooked.

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retepsnikrep
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:39 am

Whale Oil, Beef, Hooked.

Post by retepsnikrep »

This is about Whale Oil. The other two words are added for fun and the whole title must be read at speed. Takes you back to School doesn't it?

I'll come to the Whale Oil later.

Like fire, or the aggregation of crystals, civilisation is spurred by itself. It has crackled and leapt on for 300,000 years, give or take a fortnight, to the present amazing level. Like fire, it burns all the time but flares up, and dies down by times. The flare-ups are technological leaps, like taming the horse, or making iron, or transistors. This civilising conflagration is still raging but there are boundaries, even to progress, and the flammable material eventually will be virtually all consumed, and progress will slow to nearly nothing. The explorations of science into cosmology, atomic structure, genetics, physics, and all the make up of our physical world is already well advanced. It is sure that all will be known in due course and much less remains to be discovered and developed than we have already found. Priorities have been observed in the past; necessity being the Mother of Invention. A cure for diphtheria was made before the non-stick frying pan. Now we are as much into research and development for leisure and diversion, as we are for need.

We have established that it has not been steady progress, this civilisation. Why didn't we make the advances of the last two hundred years, long before, if not 300,000 years before, then at least earlier than we did?

The answer is light. Artificial light.

Twenty thousand years ago (yesterday in our time-line) at a barbecue, fat dropped out of the spitted pig and made the fire flare up. Our Grandad collected some in a little pot, put a wick in and there was light. He could now read in bed, if he had been able to read and if there had been any books. This little animal fat lamp, for the first time, extended the working time beyond the daylight hours, and extended the working areas to dark caves and mines. But it was scarce stuff, fat from animals. No natural substitute was found, except beeswax, which was even more limited in supply. Fat or oil, was expensive, fetched a lot of money or barter. Working on the theory that the amount of fat obtained was relative to the size of the animal, our clever ancestors went for the largest animal on Earth to get oil. It was a success, not only did Whales have a great deal of fat because of their size, they were extra well endowed with blubber for swimming in bitter cold water. Many boats, with forty or fifty men in each would spend a year in the Antarctic and Arctic Oceans catching and boiling the leviathans, so that a fellow might light his whale oil lamp in London or Dresden and study the leg of a flea. Thus more people had access to light, to burn the midnight oil in experiment and thought.

By the light of the whale scientists pored and delved and increasingly efficient successors were found. Paraffin Lamps, Candles, Gas, Electricity.

When you think that without it there would be no 'East Enders' and we'd all have to go to bed at six o'clock, all you can say is 'Whale Oil Beef Hooked.'

Peter :-6



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retepsnikrep
Posts: 71
Joined: Wed Dec 13, 2006 9:39 am

Whale Oil, Beef, Hooked.

Post by retepsnikrep »

Diuretic;503890 wrote: Well placed in the history section. I remember hearing that one in 1975 :D
Nice one Ha Ha :) :-6
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