220 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1952 



haps the future supplies are under water or in the frozen regions of 

 the Poles. 



There is a fantastically large source of chemicals hardly touched at 

 present in sea water. The amounts of chemicals in sea water have 

 from time to time been published, but I venture to repeat them. A 

 cubic mile of sea water contains 143,000,000 tons of sodium chloride, 

 more than 300,000 tons of bromine, and over 5,000,000 tons of mag- 

 nesium. A host of other metals are present in lesser amounts. When 

 it is considered that there are over 300,000,000 cubic miles of sea water, 

 the potential supply of metals and salts is staggering. At present, 

 sea water is a source of salt in some countries and an economic source 

 of magnesium and bromine in the United States. The future chemist 

 and engineer will discover a practical method of recovering many of 

 the other minerals for commercial use. Paraphrasing Longfellow — 



Would'st thou, so the chemist questioned, 



Learn the secret of the seas? 

 Only those who're trained in science 



Divine the possibilities. 



The use of petroleum and natural gas for fuels, and more recently 

 as raw materials for strategic organic chemicals, has been stupendous. 

 During the past 25 years, the consumption of petroleum has increased, 

 on the average, 4 percent a year, and of natural gas 10 percent a year. 

 The present demand for petroleum has reached a level of 2 billion 

 barrels a year. The demand for natural gas is 7 billion cubic feet an- 

 nually, 10 percent of which is consumed in the chemical industry. 



As of January 1951, proved reserves of petroleum had been estab- 

 lished which, on the basis of present annual consumption, would last 

 for 15 years and those of natural gas 26 to 27 years. More significant, 

 however, is the fact that in spite of the continuous increased consump- 

 tion of these products the 1951 reserves substantially exceeded those 

 of 1950. Exhaustion of supplies has been predicted periodically for 

 three decades, but still new reserves continue to be discovered, al- 

 though with greater difficulty and at increased expense. Even if the 

 supply in the United States decreases more rapidly than elsewhere, the 

 reserves in foreign lands will be adequate for a long time. From 1859 

 to 1951, almost a century, about 41 billion barrels of oil have been pro- 

 duced. All this would not fill a space 1.6 cubic miles in volume. This 

 is insignificant in relation to the total volume of oil likely still to be 

 found in the world. 



But even when the petroleum is exhausted, huge reserves of coal, 

 oil shale, and lignite are available. By appropriate processing, the 

 study of which is well advanced if not yet perfected, these may be con- 

 verted into gasoline and related products. On the basis of present 

 consumption, coal, oil shale, and lignite reserves would last 700 or 800 





