James Cook (1728-1779) Famous For: Discovery of the Hawaiian Islands. An English captain who circumnavigated around the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. He made contact with the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands, Australia, New Zealand, and around the Indian Ocean back to the Atlantic. He died while serving the Crown in Hawaii.
The Maine Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] relies on laboratory tests called EPH [Extractable Petroleum Hydrocarbons] and VPH [Volatile Petroleum Hydrocarbons] to test for the presence of gasoline or fuel oil in drinking water.
Gasoline is a volatile, flammable liquid obtained from the refinement of petroleum, or crude oil. It was originally discarded as a byproduct of kerosene production, but its ability to vaporize at low temperatures made it a useful fuel for many machines. The first oil well in the United States was struck by Edwin L. Drake near Titusville, Pennsylvania, in 1859 at a depth of almost 70 feet (21 m).