BITUMEN

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 15 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BER-BLA

BITUMEN , the name applied by the Romans to the various descriptions of natural hydrocarbons, the word petroleum not being used in classical Latin. In its widest sense it embraces the whole range of these substances, including natural gas, the more or less liquid descriptions of petroleum, and the solid forms of asphalt, albertite, gilsonite or teintahite,

elaterite

ELATERITE

, ozakerite and hatchettite. To distinguish bitumen intermediate in consistency between asphalt and the more liquid kinds of crude petroleum, the

term

TERM

maltha (Latin) is frequently employed. The bitumens of

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

commercial importance may be grouped under the three headings of (I) natural gas, (2) petroleum, and (3) asphalt, and will be found fully described under these titles. In the scriptures there are numerous references to bitumen, among which' the following may be quoted:In

Genesis

GENESIS
GENESIS (Gr. 'ybeo-es, becoming; the
term
- TERM
being used in English as a synonym for origin or process of coming into being)

ix. 3, we are told that in the building of the tower of Babel slime had they for mortar," and in

Genesis

xiv. to, that the vale of Siddim " was full of slime-pits," the word slime in the latter

quotation

QUOTATION

from our version appearing as bitumen in the

Vulgate

VULGATE (from Lat. vulgus, the common people)

. Herodotus alludes to the use of the bitumen brought down by the Is, a tributary of the Euphrates, as mortar in building the walls of Babylon: Diodorus, Curtius, Josephus,

Bochart

BOCHART, SAMUEL (1599-1667)

and others make similar mention of this use of bitumen, and Vitruvius tells us that it was employed in admixture with clay.
In its various forms, bitumen is one of the most widely dig= tributed of substances. It occurs, though sometimes only it small quantity, in almost every part of the globe, and 'through: out the whole range of geological strata, from the Laurentian rocks to the most

recent

RECENT

members of the

Quaternary

QUATERNARY

period. Although the gaseous and liquid forms of bitumen may bere= garded as having been formed in the strata in which.they.are found or as having been received into such strata shortly after formation, the semi-solid and solid 'varieties may be cgnsidered to have been produced by the oxidation and evaporation of
liquid petroleum escaping from underlying or better preserved deposits into other strata, or into fissures where atmospheric action and loss of the more volatile constituents can take place. It should, however, be stated that there is some difference of

opinion

OPINION (Lat. opinio, from opinari, to think)

as to the precise manner of production of some of the solid forms of bitumen, and especially of ozokerite. (B. R.)

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