36 Reviews — Petroleum and Gas Resources of Canada. 



this Report or the lessons for ourselves that may be drawn from it, 

 and we shall confine ourselves to a brief paragraph. There is much 

 to be said for establishing an institution to serve a similar purpose 

 for the British Empire — an institution which should ever be ready to 

 explore outlying and little-known quarters of the Empire, and to 

 investigate and report upon their resources, ; and which should 

 cordially co-operate with and encourage the local geological surveys. 

 Something has already been done, and perhaps as the result of these 

 tragic days something more may eventuate ; we have at least been 

 thoroughly taught the danger of depending solely upon the result of 

 haphazard individual effort. At the Imperial Institute there is 

 a small staff under the Colonial Office to undertake investigations of 

 the kind in point, with particular reference to the Crown Colonies. 

 Yery useful work has been turned out, but all on too small a scale : 

 the staff is not large enough, and the financial equipment far from 

 generous or sufficient. Geological surveys exist at home and in the 

 great dependencies : all work independently and without mutual 

 co-operation. In. Great Britain the Geological Survey, which — 

 perhaps humorously — is placed under the Board of Education, has 

 devoted itself to investigations of some scientific interest, but appears 

 to have carefully avoided the risk of being reproached with doing 

 anything which might prove of economic value. Only under the 

 stress of war has it so far broken through its traditional aloofness 

 from mundane affairs as to issue a series of monographs on the 

 mineral resources of the United Kingdom. A small and distinct 

 Survey is maintained in Dublin. To complete the picture of 

 heterogeneity it only remains to add that the actual working of 

 mines comes within the purview of the Home Office. 



V. — Petroleum and Natural Gas Resources of Canada. By 

 Frederick G. Clapp and others. Vols. I and II. Canada, Dept. 

 of Mines, Mines Branch No. 291. 



Tim AT the various members of the British Empire are alive to the 

 J_ extreme importance of the question of liquid and gaseous fuel 

 is shown by the recent activities of the government departments of 

 the chief self-governing Colonies in investigating their natural 

 resources of oil and gas. Canada, whose oil industry dates back as 

 far as 1857 and whose gas industry has now far outstripped the 

 former in value, and is growing enormously, has rendered a service 

 to the oil investigator in the publication of two volumes on 

 Petroleum and Natural Gas Resources of Canada, which, in addition 

 to a series of general chapters on Petrolexim problems, combine in 

 a very accessible form the available knowledge on the various fields, 

 and include a series of useful maps. 



The first of the volumes deals with general oil and gas problems, 

 geological, chemical, engineering, and economic, and the composite 

 authorship gives it this advantage, that the various subjects have 

 each been considered by investigators and workers in the particular 

 branch ; thus we are spared the anomaly of the geologist writing on 

 engineering or the engineer writing on geology, with the usual 



