GASOLINE 



2405 



GASPE 



years the most popular of all fuels for internal- 

 combustion engines. This has been called the 

 "gasoline age," so completely has gasoline 

 superseded other fuels for supplying motive 

 power for automobiles, trucks, tractors, flying 

 machines and some forms of stationary engines. 

 Automobiles by the millions have made such 

 tremendous demands upon the supply that the 

 price more than trebled in the half year be- 

 tween September, 1915, and March, 1916. 

 From a rate as low as ten cents a gallon the 

 cost to consumers advanced to over forty cents 

 in some cities, and nowhere was it lower than 

 twenty cents per gallon. The increase was not 

 due to price manipulation; the supply could 

 not keep pace with the demand, and manu- 

 facturers were called upon to devise methods 

 for very largely increased production. 



The Work It Can Perform. The power it is 

 possible to develop from a gallon of gasoline 



tionally distilled into its component parts, in 

 the order of their volatility the lightest be- 

 ing separated first, and gasoline, which is not 

 quite so light, second. From the retort the 

 gasoline is passed through a coil of cold pipes, 

 called a worm, where it is cooled; it is then 

 passed to receiving tanks. 



Recently the problem of increasing the yield 

 of gasoline from petroleum has been success- 

 fully solved. The heavier oils left in the re- 

 tort at the time the gasoline is distilled are 

 vaporized and heated under pressure. At 500- 

 575 C. (930-1070 F.) under a pressure of 

 250-300 pounds per square inch, good yields 

 of gasoline are obtained. It is estimated that 

 if these processes were generally adopted the 

 petroleum deposits of the United States would 

 last for over a hundred years, whereas at the 

 present rate of production it is believed they 

 will be exhausted in twenty-seven years. At- 



THE POWER OF GASOLINE TO DO WORK 



Every minute that gasoline is properly employed in an internal-combustion engine it performs as 

 much work as can be done by several teams of horses in an equal length of time. 



is one of the most remarkable developments 

 of engineering. It will move a ton truck 

 fourteen miles; propel a 3,000-pound automo- 

 bile twelve miles, at the rate of forty miles 

 an hour; run machinery to milk 300 cows; 

 bale four tons of hay; plow three-fifths of an 

 acre of land; mix thirty-five cubic yards of 

 cement; keep eight electric lights burning for 

 thirty hours. 



How Produced. Until recent years gasoline 

 was considered one of the waste products in 

 the refining of petroleum. It was a by-product 

 of kerosene; to-day kerosene is of secondary 

 importance and is becoming a drug on the 

 market, for the quantity of kerosene increases 

 with the increasing production of gasoline. It 

 is more than probable that science will some 

 day develop ingenious methods which will 

 give kerosene the fuel value of its by-product, 

 for already some specially-equipped engines 

 can use it. 



To produce gasoline, petroleum is placed in 

 a retort. This is a closed vessel. Through 

 the agency of heat, gently increased during 

 the process of refining, the petroleum is frac- 



tempts to manufacture gasoline from natural 

 gas are also beingrnade. 



Amount of Production. The present annual 

 production of gasoline in the United States is 

 about one billion gallons. Of this, between 

 thirty and forty per cent is exported. The 

 amount produced in Canada is very small, 

 practically all of the supply used in the Do- 

 minion being imported from the United States. 

 Canadians get nearly twenty per cent more in 

 every gallon than do purchasers in the United 

 States, for in the Dominion the standard meas- 

 ure is the imperial gallon of 277.274 cubic 

 inches, while in the American states the gallon 

 is 231 cubic inches. See GAS ENGINE; AUTO- 

 MOBILE; TRACTION ENGINE. F.ST.A. 



Consult V. B. Lewes's Oil Fuel; Butler's Oil 

 Fuel; Its Supply, Composition and Application. 



GASPE, gas pay', PHILIPPE AUBERT DE (1786- 

 1871), a Canadian novelist, author of Les 

 Anciens Canadiennes (The Old-Time Cana- 

 dians), an historical novel dealing with the old 

 regime, when "seigneur, cure, censitaire and 

 voyageur mingled in a life of feudal loyalty, 

 religious Zealand stirring adventure." Brought 



