<P> The earliest known oil wells were drilled in China in 347 AD or earlier . They had depths of up to about 800 feet (240 m) and were drilled using bits attached to bamboo poles . The oil was burned to evaporate brine and produce salt . By the 10th century, extensive bamboo pipelines connected oil wells with salt springs . The ancient records of China and Japan are said to contain many allusions to the use of natural gas for lighting and heating . Petroleum was known as burning water in Japan in the 7th century . In his book Dream Pool Essays written in 1088, the polymathic scientist and statesman Shen Kuo of the Song Dynasty coined the word 石油 (Shíyóu, literally "rock oil") for petroleum, which remains the term used in contemporary Chinese and Japanese (Sekiyū). </P> <P> The first streets of Baghdad were paved with tar, derived from petroleum that became accessible from natural fields in the region . In the 9th century, oil fields were exploited in the area around modern Baku, Azerbaijan . These fields were described by the Arab geographer Abu al - Hasan' Alī al - Mas'ūdī in the 10th century, and by Marco Polo in the 13th century, who described the output of those wells as hundreds of shiploads . Distillation of Petroleum was described by the Persian alchemist, Muhammad ibn Zakarīya Rāzi (Rhazes). There was production of chemicals such as kerosene in the alembic (al - ambiq), which was mainly used for kerosene lamps . Arab and Persian chemists also distilled crude oil in order to produce flammable products for military purposes . Through Islamic Spain, distillation became available in Western Europe by the 12th century . It has also been present in Romania since the 13th century, being recorded as păcură . </P> <P> The earliest mention of petroleum in the Americas occurs in Sir Walter Raleigh's account of the Trinidad Pitch Lake in 1595; while thirty - seven years later, the account of a visit of a Franciscan, Joseph de la Roche d'Allion, to the oil springs of New York was published in Gabriel Sagard's Histoire du Canada . A Finnish born Swede, scientist and student of Carl Linnaeus, Peter Kalm, in his work Travels into North America published first in 1753 showed on a map the oil springs of Pennsylvania . </P> <P> In 1710 or 1711 (sources vary) the Russian - born Swiss physician and Greek teacher Eirini d'Eyrinys (also spelled as Eirini d'Eirinis) discovered asphaltum at Val - de-Travers, (Neuchâtel). He established a bitumen mine de la Presta there in 1719 that operated until 1986 . </P>

How did oil industries end up with so much gasoline and why was it a problem