i 5 6 I. A. HOURWICH 



no material difference in cartage. Oil is supplied in both 

 cases by the Waters-Pierce Oil company, a branch of the 

 Standard. The freight rate from Whiting to Little Rock, 

 Ark., is 1.9 cents per gallon; the local difference in freight 

 between Hot Springs and Helena cannot explain a difference 

 in the price as high as 4 cents. 



For New Jersey we have the following figures : 



City. 



Hoboken . . 

 Jersey City 

 Bayonne. . . 

 Newark 



Population. 



59,364 

 206,433 



32,722 

 246,070 



Gross price per 

 gallon. 



► .07 

 .08 

 .08 

 .08% 



Why is the price not affected by the distance between 

 Jersey City and Bayonne, whereas the same distance between 

 Jersey City and Hoboken results in a difference of 1 cent on 

 the price, and the greater distance between Jersey City and 

 Newark adds only \ cent? Why is the difference between 

 the price at Hoboken and that at Newark as high as 1| cents 

 per gallon, exceeding the freight from Buffalo to points in 

 New Hampshire or Vermont? These are queries for which 

 neither the cost of cartage nor the size of the market seems to 

 offer an adequate answer. 



Taking the state of New York, at Buffalo, which is one 

 of the great distributing centers, the price is 8 cents, whereas 

 at Cohoes, a town with a population of 23,910, a few miles 

 from Albany, it is 6 J cents. Albany is supplied from Buffalo, 

 the freight rate is f cent per gallon. Thus the reduction in 

 favor of Cohoes amounts to 2J cents per gallon, or to more 

 than 25 per cent of the price at Buffalo. It does not seem 

 clear why the cost of distributing oil within the city of Buffalo 

 should be as high as 2J cents per gallon, while the variation 

 between Jersey City and Newark is only \ cent. 



In Virginia, the price at Norfolk, a seaport with a popu- 

 lation of 46,624, is 9 cents, while at Winchester, an inland 

 town with a population of 5,161, it is 6 cents per gallon. A 

 difference of 3 cents could not well be accounted for by the 

 cost of cartage within the city of Norfolk, when it is con- 



