If we were to delve into man's discovery and first use of lubricants, we might find we were antedating the invention of the wheel. The details of this discovery are lost in antiquity, but if our imagination is sufficiently vivid, we might picture a man of the stone age noticing how much easier his crude sled moved after it had been dragged accidentally through fat drippings around the cooking fire. Some spark of intelligence led him to associate fat and ease of haulage, and the first chapter of the age-old story of lubrication was written. For many more centuries little additional progress was made, and that was confined to the production of oils from animal fats, and the introduction of fatty oils of vegetable origin.