Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 101 



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the turning of a key to deliver to our homes and factories heat and light 

 and power. Partial nature has apparently denied this great boon to 

 many other lands. It is practically unknown in France, Germany, and 

 Great Britain, our chief competitors in the world of industry. Even 

 wood and coal must first be converted into gas before they will burn, 

 but here is a fuel of which nature has given us a practical monopoly, 

 lavish in abundance, already transmuted into the gaseous stage and 

 stored under vast pressure to be released wherever wanted at our 

 bidding. The record of waste of this our best and purest fuel is a 

 national disgrace. 



At this very minute this unrivaled fuel is passing into the air within 

 our domain from uncontrolled gas wells, from oil wells, from giant 

 flambeaus, from leaking pipe lines and the many other methods of waste 

 at the rate of not less than one billion cubic feet daily and probably 

 much more. 



Very few appear to realize either the great importance of this hydro- 

 carbon fuel resource of our country, or its vast original quantity. Some 

 of the individual wells, if we may credit the measurements, have pro- 

 duced this fuel at the rate of 70,000,000 cubic feet daily, the equivalent 

 in heating value of 70,000 bushels of coal, or nearly 12,000 barrels of 

 oil. In my humble opinion the original amount of this volatile fuel 

 in the United States, permeating, as it does, every undisturbed geologic 

 formation from the oldest to the most recent, rivaled or even exceeded 

 in heating value, all of our wondrous stores of coal. 



Suppose that it were possible for some Nero, inspired by a mania of 

 incendiarism, to apply a consuming torch to every bed of coal that crops 

 to the surface from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and that the entire coal 

 supply of the Union was threatened with destruction within a very 

 few years, what do you think would happen ? Would our state legisla- 

 tures sit undisturbed panoplied by such a carnival of fire ? Would the 

 governors of thirty states remain silent while the demon of flame was 

 ravaging the coal resources of the republic ? Certainly not ; there would 

 be a united effort by the governors and legislatures of all the states in 

 the Union to stay the progress of such a direful conflagration ; even the 

 sacred constitutional barriers wisely erected between state and federal 

 authority would melt away in the presence of such an awful calamity, 

 and the mighty arm of the nation would be invoked to help end the 

 common peril to every interest. And yet this imaginary case is an 

 actual one with the best and purest fuel of the country, equal probably 

 in quantity and value for heat, light, and power to all of our coal 

 resources. This blazing zone of destruction extends in a broad band 

 from the Lakes to the Gulf, and westward to the Pacific, embracing in 

 its flaming pathway the most precious fuel possessions of a continent. 

 No one can even approximate the extent of this waste. From personal 



