3. On the Effect of Oil on a Stormy Sea

The calming effect of oil on troubled waters is so well known and so often referred to, that we might have expected there would, by this time, have been a considerable amount of written information on the subject. This calming effect of oil is not only well known, but it has also become so stereotyped by constant repetition, that it seems to have acquired the stamp of classical antiquity upon it, yet one is surprised to find that reference to it in early writers is strangely conspicuous by its absence. Our knowledge of the subject seems to have lived almost entirely in tradition.