304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 39 



quarter of all the nation's output of oil. California has produced 

 4,872,000,000 barrels, 24 percent, and Oklahoma 4,341.000,000 bar- 

 rels, 21 percent. The output of no other State has equaled the do- 

 mestic demand of petroleum products for the year 1937 — namely, 

 1,169,000,000 barrels. 



Altogether, Texas, California, and Oklahoma have contributed 72 

 percent of all the oil output of the United States. The total produc- 

 tion of each of these States is greater than that of the U. S. S. R. — 

 3,771,000,000 barrels through 1937— which ranks next to the United 

 States in point of cumulative production. Mexico ranks third in 

 total world output, with 1,863,000,000 barrels, and Venezuela fourth, 

 with 1,491,000,000 barrels. No other oil-producing country has 

 produced as much as 1 billion barrels. 



The principal petroleum products and their uses form long lists 

 whose presentation time does not now permit. A general grouping 

 of the refined products includes gasoline, kerosene, fuel oils, lubricants, 

 paraffin wax, petroleum coke, asj^halt, road oil, petrolatum, absorp- 

 tion oil, and medicinal oil. 



Kerosene, the first petroleum product to be utilized in important 

 quantities, is still extensively used for lighting. In addition, it is 

 utilized in increasing volumes to provide power and heat. 



The domestic demand for gasoline in 1937 was 519,000,000 barrels, 

 for use chiefly in our motor vehicles. The automobile depends 

 heavily on the petroleum industry; it consumes 89 percent of our 

 gasoline, 40 percent of our lubricants, and requires natural-gas- 

 derived carbon black which lengthens two and one-half to three 

 times the lifetime of our tires. The domestic demand for gasoline 

 is directly related to the number of motor vehicles, which average one 

 to about every five persons. The volume of consumed gasoline, since 

 the introduction of the first American automobile in 1892, parallels 

 the increasing numbers of motor cars. In late years the slight depar- 

 ture from parallelism is due to the greater volume of 

 gasoline used by each car and to the increased use of gasoline in 

 airplanes, tractors, motorboats, and stationary engines. Second only 

 to gasoline were the requirements for fuel oil — 442,000,000 barrels in 

 1937 — which is used by railroads, steamships, gas and electric power 

 plants, mines, smelters, manufacturing plants, oil companies, and 

 United States Navy, and for domestic heating. The development of 

 our machine age has depended on a plentiful supply of lubricants 

 made from petroleum. The great volume of demand — 23,323,000 

 barrels in 1937 — can be met only by obtaining it from petroleum. 



Our petroleum output, as thus briefly described, is provided by one 

 of the Nation's most important industries. The investment in the 

 United States in the five divisions — the producing, natural gasoline, 



