The dawn of the oil age was fairly recent. Although the stuff was used to waterproof boats in the Middle East 6,000 years ago, extracting it in earnest began only in 1859 after an oil strike in Pennsylvania.[…]It was used to make kerosene, the main fuel for artificial lighting after overfishing led to a shortage of whale blubber. Other liquids produced in the refining process, too unstable or smoky for lamplight, were burned or dumped.

Axe and it ſhalbe geven you. Seke and ye ſhall fynd / Knocke and it ſhalbe opened vnto you.

I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan I could not heave.

Shrewsbury, which is home to the grandaddy of all railway signal boxes - Severn Bridge Junction, which I admire as my train swings on to the Hereford line.