origin of the term "Petroleum", instead stems from monasteries in southern Italy where is was in use by the end of the first millenium as an alternative for the older term "naphta". For the volatile forms of hydrocarbons, now known as "Methane" or "Natural Gas", terms came only in use during the 17th Century and later. 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. In 1710 or 1711 (sources vary) the Russian-born Swiss physician and Greek teacher Eirini d'Eyrinys (or 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. In 1745 under the Empress Elizabeth of Russia the first oil well and refinery were built in Ukhta by Fiodor Priadunov. Through the process of distillation of the "rock oil" (petroleum) he received a kerosene-like substance, which was used in oil lamps by Russian churches and monasteries (though households still relied on candles). Oil sands were mined from 1745 in Merkwiller-Pechelbronn, Alsace under the direction of Louis Pierre Ancillon de la Sablonnière, by special appointment of Louis XV. The Pechelbronn oil field was active until 1970, and was the birthplace of companies like Antar and Schlumberger. The first modern refinery was built there in 1857. Modern history Coal oil The modern history of petroleum began in the 19th century with the refining of paraffin from crude oil. The Scottish chemist James Young in 1847 noticed a natural petroleum seepage in the Riddings colliery at Alfreton, Derbyshire from which he distilled a light thin oil suitable for use as lamp oil, at the same time obtaining a thicker oil suitable for lubricating machinery. The new oils were successful, but the supply of oil from the coal mine soon began to fail (eventually being exhausted in 1851). Young, noticing that the oil was dripping from the sandstone roof of the coal mine, theorized that it somehow originated from the action of heat on