UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 147 
well petroleum and yields products similar to those of 
petroleum. 
Oil shales have been worked in Scotland and France 
for upwards of sixty years. In the former country the 
industry has been a succssful one from a financial stand- 
point, especially of late years, although it is passing 
through a difficult period at present. The industry in 
France has not been nearly so successsful as that in 
Scotland. The success of the Scotch shale industry has 
been brought about by the development of successful 
and cheap processes for treating the shales and oils pro- 
duced from them, but mostly by local conditions, such 
as competition only with high priced imported petroleum 
products, low labor costs and the fact that the industry 
grew up in a densely populated region, where a ready 
market for oil and ammonium products was available. 
A recent reorganization of the Scotch shale companies, 
combining them into one organization, is hoped to better 
the present condition of the industry in Scotland. 
Oil shale contains little or no oil as such, but it 
contains substances which when the shale is subjected 
to destructive distillation yield gas, crude oil and nitro- 
gen-containing compounds, notably ammonia, as well as 
other products in small and probably of unimportant 
value for the most part. Oil shale as a rule must be 
mined much as coal is mined, crushed, and heated to a 
relatively high temperature in closed retorts, which may 
operate continuously or intermittently. These steps are 
necessary to produce the gas, crude oil and ammonia, 
the latter of which is in solution in the water obtained 
along with the oil. 
The ammonia water is then distilled, and the 
released ammonia passed into sulphuric acid, producing 
ammonium sulphate. The crude oil must be refined, 
much as petroleum is refined, to produce the various 
commercial products. The refining of shale oil is more 
complex and in all probability more costly than the equiv- 
alent refining of petroleum. The shale oils can be refined 
undoubtedly, however, and can be made to yield many 
products similar to those produced when petroleum is 
refined. The oils produced from the oil shales of this 
country will yield gasolines, burning oils, and paraffin 
