PART II. 



PETKOLEUM.' 



INTRODUCTION, 



Petroleum is of peculiar value to society because it is the sole source 

 of gasoline, the dominant motor fuel; provides kerosene, the most 

 important illuminant outside of cities; and yields lubricating oil, 

 upon which the wheels of industry revolve. In addition, it has come 

 to be an essential fuel in the Southwest and on the Pacific coast, 

 where coal is lacking ;2 is requisite to the operations of an oil- 

 burning navy; and forms the starting point for an oil by-products 

 industry, a branch of chemical manufacture still in its infancy and 

 offering unlimited possibilities of development. 



The liquidity of the crude product makes petroleum unique among 

 mineral raw materials, contributing wide commercial availability 

 through the ease with which the substance may be mined and 

 handled; while the magnitude of the resource has given confidence 

 for the extensive mechanical developments essential to its use. Hence 

 the employment of petroleum is deeply rooted among the practices 

 and needs of modern life, and any tendency toward disuse of its 

 essential products,^ either through undue increase in price or from 

 decline in production, will mark a turning point in material comfort 

 and industrial advantage, the deferring of which becomes an object 

 of universal concern. As the petroleum deposits of the United 

 States have been drawn upon with extraordinary rapidity and the 

 supplies have already suffered serious depletion, the matter of their 

 approaching exhaustion assumes the light of immediate importance. 

 The comforting assertion that such considerations may be safely 

 left to future generations does not apply to petroleum.* 



^ An economic study of a limited resource. 



' Part of the industrial activity of the eastern part of the country is now dependent 

 upon fuel oil. 



8 See p. 93 for qualifications in respect to fuel oil. 



* " * • ♦ petroleum is a priceless resource, for It can never be replaced. Trees 

 can be grown again upon the soil from which they have been taken. But how can 

 petroleum be produced? It has taken the ages for nature to distill it in her subter- 

 ranean laboratory. We do not even know her process. We may find a substitute for It, 

 but have not yet. It is practically the one lubricant of the world to-day. Not a rail- 

 road wheel turns without its way being smoothed by it. We can make light and heat 

 by hydroelectric power, but the great turbines move on bearings that are smothered in 

 petroleum. From it we get the quick-exploding gas which is to the motor and the air- 

 ship what air is to the human body. To industry, agriculture, commerce, and the pleas- 

 ures of life petroleum is now essential." (Franklin K. Lane in Reports of the Depart- 

 ment of the Interior for 1915, Washington, vol. 1. p. 16.) 



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