(The following is excerpted from the editorial page of “The Boston Daily Advertiser” Dec. 18, 1870)
Dear Editor,
I read with great interest and no small amount of incredulity your recent article regarding the expanding oilfields of Texas and the value of the petroleum gushing forth from that blighted Neptunian landscape of scrub brush and horny toads, not to mention the continually rising interest in the crude oil issuing from the Drake Well in Pennsylvania.
The supposed futurist you interviewed — your term, while I prefer “dilettante” or “carpetbagger” — seems to believe that petroleum distillate is our future, and that soon enough, our lanterns will burn nought but kerosene and ground oil will be the sole lubricant of our machinery.
While I commend your man’s inventiveness, perhaps his talents would be better suited to the realm of science fiction. A world operated on petroleum? Gash and codsocks, says I!
Lest you question my judgment, allow me to list my bonafides: my name is Captain Balthazar Ballard, and I’ve been a whaler my whole life. My nativity took place on a whaling ship, and my conception too. I’ve performed every job to be done aboard a whaler, from stirring the try pots to hoisting a harpoon to donning an evening gown and dancing for the men when spirits sink low. Today, I captain one of the finest whaling vessels Massachusetts has ever produced, The Unctuous Deacon, and my men and I have sailed the breadth of the Atlantic in our hunts.
Over the years, we’ve laid low bowheads and rights and taken many a Nantucket sleighride as a zealous sperm whale has tried to drag us to our graves. We’ve bested them all, though not without a few missing arms and legs here and there, and the fruit of our labor has been the oil that burns in your lamps and keeps your sewing machines purring.
For better than a hundred years, whaling has kept the lights burning in this great nation, and now I’m to understand we’re to dismantle the whole industry due to these new upstarts and the filthy black grime they pump from the depths of Sheol? One cannot help but laugh!
Petroleum shall never overtake whale oil, and I have but one word to prove it:
Infrastructure.
Sure, the Texan can pump his oil from the ground and bandy it about for all to see, his great twitching mustache concealing the lack of philtrum that indicates he was born to several generations of hardened dipsomaniacs, but how will he refine it and get it to the consumer? A pipe stretching across the nation? That I’d like to see!
Who will bottle this oil? Who will stock it on the store shelves? It’s an unknown product, not like whale oil.
While the Texan may lack infrastructure, you know who has it in spades? That’s right; I do.
How do I procure my oil? By assembling a team of vicious, unlettered men who are united in their shared desire to kill the biggest things on the planet as payback for the state of their lives. How do I get my product to the bottling plant? By putting it on a cart led by a man named Chester and his two stout horses. How does it get to the stores? I don’t know that part, but it gets there just the same. That’s called infrastructure.
And what if the Texan’s claim should run dry? What will he burn to light his cabin, and what will he use to lubricate his drill? That’s right: whale oil. It seems to me that if whale oil’s supposed replacement should be required to use whale oil during any part of its genesis or evolution, then it is clearly a sign that this replacement should be thrown out wholesale and abandoned.
Our Founding Fathers, wise men that they were, relied heavily on whale oil. Whale oil is one of the building blocks of our nation. Should we turn our back on it, we might as well light our homes by burning the Stars and Stripes while saluting Tsar Alexander II.
To conclude, dear Editor, I will say that while I chuckled at your recent work of speculative fiction, I have not lost sleep over it. Whale oil has been with us for more than a century, and there is little doubt in my mind that it will remain the dominant energy solution 100 years hence.
Alas, I must close my letter and mail it quick as we are hastening to leave port once more. It’s like to be a long voyage; these great crafty fish get cleverer at hiding from our watchman every year!
Sincerely,
Capt. Balthazar Ballard
