Rock oil distilled from shale became available as kerosene even before the Industrial Revolution began. While traveling in Austria, John Austin, a New York merchant, observed an effective, cheap oil lamp and made a model that upgraded kerosene lamps. Soon the U.S. rock oil industry boomed as whale oil increased in price owing to the growing scarcity of that mammal. Samuel Downer, Jr., an early entrepreneur, patented “Kerosene” as a trade name in 1859 and licensed its usage. As oil production and refining increased, prices collapsed, which became characteristic of the industryThe various oil strikes focused attention on a legal situation unique to the United States. Land ownership carried with it rights to all subsoil minerals, termed the common law “right of capture.” Oil companies, like other mineral companies, negotiated with each landowner for drilling rights. This right of capture continued for years despite the efforts of such industry giants as conservation-minded Henry L. Doherty of Cities Service Oil Company, who sought to institute oil field unitization. The right of capture ensured early exhaustion of oil fields and tragic waste of a valuable energy source. Wallace E. Pratt, a geologist and longtime Jersey Standard leader, has estimated that by releasing the natural gas that often underlies petroleum pools and by using poor production techniques, oil producers have wasted at least 75 percent of the oil and natural gas found to date in the United