Wood preservation preservation reaching back to ancient Greece during Alexander the Great's rule, where bridge wood was soaked in olive oil. The Romans protected their ship hulls by brushing the wood with tar. During the Industrial Revolution wood preservation became a cornerstone of the wood processing industry. Inventors and scientists such as Bethell, Boucherie, Burnett and Kyan made historic developments in wood preservation, with the preservative solutions and processes. Commercial pressure treatment began in the latter half of the 19th century with the protection of railroad cross-ties using creosote. Treated wood was used primarily for industrial, agricultural, and utility applications, where it
Oil sands to asphalt than to coal tar, and the term "oil sands" (or oilsands) is more commonly used by industry in the producing areas than "tar sands" because synthetic oil is manufactured from the bitumen, and due to the feeling that the terminology of "tar sands" is less politically acceptable to the public. Oil sands are now an alternative to conventional crude oil. In Canada, the First Nation peoples had used bitumen from seeps along the Athabasca and Clearwater Rivers to waterproof their birch bark canoes from early prehistoric times. The Canadian oil sands first became known to Europeans in 1719