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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXX. No. 768 



ances; inventors were not without hope of util- 

 izing the ocean tides; in fact, several installations 

 do exist where this is done. Some imaginative 

 people held out in the indefinite hope of our 

 securing some unknown form of energy, but de- 

 pendence upon such an assumption was undoubt- 

 edly gratuitous folly. It was therefore of the 

 utmost importance that the strictest economy be 

 practised in the expenditure of our fuel capital 

 and thus postpone a fuel famine, which is of the 

 gravest importance to a country situated as Eng- 

 land is. The principal fuels, in addition to wood, 

 coal and petroleum, including natural gas and 

 .products obtained from destructive distillation of 

 bituminous shales, are lignite, peat and alcohol. 



Reference was made to President Roosevelt's 

 important call for an international conference on 

 the conservation of natural resources that an 

 inventory of the world's supply might be pre- 

 pared. Attention was directed in this connection 

 to the report of Dr. D. T. Day, petroleum statis- 

 tician of the U. S. Gteological Survey, who has 

 given data to show that at the present rate of 

 increase America's supply of petroleum will be 

 exhausted in 1935, and if the present output were 

 maintained the supply would last only ninety 

 years. 



A review of the sources, geological and geo- 

 graphical, of petroleum showed that its distribu- 

 tion is wide, but the world is largely dependent 

 at present upon the United States and Russia. 

 The output could be greatly increased, because up 

 to the present those deposits only which yielded 

 oil suitable for conversion by fractional distilla- 

 tion into lamp oil and the ordinary commercial 

 products of the refinery had been utilized. Now 

 with the more general development of the use of 

 oil for fuels, the heavy forms of oil have become 

 marketable products. In this connection attention 

 was directed to the ease now experienced in pump- 

 ing the most viscous oils through pipes, which 

 was formerly regarded impossible, by rifling the 

 pipes and lubricating them with a current of 

 water, which travels simultaneously through the 

 grooves. 



In this connection it was stated that for most 

 purposes on land the internal combustion engine 

 would before long replace the steam engine, at 

 least for moderate powers. The steam engine 

 furnishes only about 12 per cent, of the energy of 

 the fuel in the form of work, whereas the former 

 engine yields 25 per cent. The Diesel engine even 

 yields 37 per cent. However, according to Sir 

 William White, the introduction of the turbine 



engine has given the steam engine a new and 

 probably lengthy lease of life. 



Liquid fuel possesses the advantages and coal 

 most of the disadvantages. The thermal effi- 

 ciency, talking in terms of evaporating power 

 for steam, for a pound of oil and a pound of 

 good steam coal, is 17 to 10. On account of 

 increased radius of action for vessels the British 

 Admiralty placed the figures at 18 to 10. Great 

 economy is had in the ready flexibility in the 

 use of oil. In the case of coal, a thick bed of 

 incandescent fuel must be ready and considerable 

 time is necessary to bring this into a condition of 

 active combustion. Clinkers must be removed, 

 labor is involved, and cold air rushes in, which 

 is detrimental to the boiler, besides being wasteful 

 of fuel. In regard to oil, the fueling of a vessel, 

 for example, at sea is a simple matter with a 

 flexible pipe-line. Furthermore, the combustion 

 can be controlled with precision, quickly brought 

 to highest fuel efliciency upon sudden or unusual 

 demand, or cut oflf entirely. Stoking expenses are 

 cut, and, in the case of locomotives, the stoker 

 can give intelligent assistance to the engine- 

 driver, which is not only of educational value, 

 but a valuable safeguard as well. Attention was 

 directed to the enormous increase in the con- 

 sumption of oil on the railways in the United 

 States. In 1907 it amounted to 18,885,691 bar- 

 rels; the length of line operated was 13,593 miles 

 and total length of line covered by oil-burning 

 locomotives 74,197,144 miles or an average of 

 3,935 miles per barrel of oil consumed. Many 

 large power plants also consume oil fuel in 

 America. 



A most spectacular experiment, in the shape of 

 a burning petroleum fountain, was performed as 

 an awe-inspiring illustration of the combustion 

 of liquid fuel, to call attention to the remarkable 

 incident which took place a year ago in one of 

 the Mexican oil fields. A well, 1,824 feet deep, 

 was sunk in a petroliferous formation charged 

 with oil under tremendous pressure. In less than 

 twenty minutes after, the formation was unexpect- 

 edly penetrated, the ground around the well began 

 to tremble and fissures, some 250 feet long, ap- 

 peared. One of these extended under the boiler 

 and, although the fire had been drawn, the gas 

 was ignited. The well burned fifty-eight days, 

 consuming 3,000,000 barrels (estimated) of oil. 

 The flame reached a height of 1,500 feet and at 

 the broadest part was nearly 500 feet in diameter, 

 and was so bright that a newspaper could be read 

 eleven miles away by its light. In addition to the 



