There is evidence that the Chinese used natural gas in certain regions as early as the fourth century BC. Pockets of flammable gas were first discovered trapped under the Earth in areas used by the Chinese to extract brine. The Chinese quickly discovered the flammable nature of these pockets, and came to use them as convenient ways to both heat the brine they were extracting and to prepare food. Methane lamps could also be made, simply by filling a leather bladder with gas from a well. Documents from the period maintain that a lamp prepared in this way would remain useful for an entire day.
In about the second century CE, the Chinese began systematically searching for natural gas rather than simply finding it in the process of searching for other resources. Perhaps at about this time as well, they began routing gas from deposits to other areas, sometimes as much as a day’s travel away. To do this, they tapped deposits of gas through boreholes up to 4800 feet deep and routed it through pipes made of bamboo. The network of pipelines sometimes crossed under and over roads to reach their destinations. As this became more common, the Chinese discovered that certain deposits of gas were unsafe to use because they were not mixed with air. These unsafe pockets of gas were put through a very complicated refining process emulating the world’s first carburetor. After being mixed with air in this ingenious way, the gas could be used quite safely.
At the 2007 world conference of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science(IFToMM), B. Kopey presented a paper on drilling technology that claimed that the Chinese knew how to drill about 1000 BCE (citing a paper by W. D. Moor).
References
Return to History of Chinese Invention and Discovery
Development of Drilling Technics from Ancient Ages to Modern Times
International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science(IFToMM) by Bohdan Kopey, 2007The Genius of China
3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention
written by Robert K.G. Temple and published by Simon and Schuster, 1986
Currently out-of-print