66 BULLETIN 102, VOL. 1, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



the total demands for petroleum are increasing at a growing rate, the 

 rate of production is slowing and there is scant hope of soon increas- 

 ing the supply from Mexico.^ In fine, the resource is not equal to 

 all the demands looking to it. 



We may examine in closer detail the trend of the growing demand 

 for petroleum. As a result of the general speeding up of industrial 

 activities, especially during the past year, there has not merely come 

 an increased demand for all the petroleum products, but this demand 

 has been preferential, focusing with particular intensity upon fuel oil. 

 Especially has this tendency been marked in the eastern part of the 

 country, the far West already having long been almost entirely de- 

 pendent upon oil fuel. The growing use of fuel oil in the East 

 during 1917-18 was partly, if not primarily, a reflex from the coal 

 shortage.^ Many industries, finding coal difficult or impossible to ob- 

 tain, turned to fuel oil, which for the time being was " easier " 

 than coal, due to the enterprise and superior distribution organi- 

 zation of the petroleum industry as compared with the coal in- 

 dustry, hampered by more critical limitations in transportation. 

 Even to-day there is reason to believe that many enterprises under 

 construction are planning on oil fuel in place of coal, while among 

 established industries a shift from coal to oil has been going on to an 

 extent not generally realized. 



Thus coal shifted part of its burden to petroleum and there is 

 now a shortage of fuel oil, with good prospects of a critical dearth of 

 this substance. While such matters are not open to accurate measure, 

 it is roughly estimated that this shift has relieved upward of 10,- 

 000,000 tons of coal during the past winter, much of that gen- 

 erosity being displayed in the very heart of the coal regions. That 

 has happened even in Pittsburgh, the center of the most important 

 coal district in the world. It is evident that such relief can only be 

 temporary, and a continuation will soon lead, if it has not already, to 

 more serious difficulities and eventually to a disastrous breakdown of 

 fuel supply. It is absolutely essential to turn the tide back toward 

 coal in the instances in question, with the possible exception of New 

 England, where the change, due to peculiar transportation conditions, 

 is valid. If coal can not meet the issue, then industrial activities must 

 be curtailed. There is no other way out.^ 



As the demand for fuel oil for some time has been in advance of 

 the demand for gasoline and other petroleum products, there has been 



1 If transportation from Mexico to this country can be facilitated by the construc- 

 tion of concrete tankers or otherwise, the situation may be considerably eased for th* 

 time being. 



2 It has been influenced also by increased naval and military needs. 



' It is interesting that the most conspicuous maladjustment in the normal utilization 

 of petroleum — the use of oil for steam raising — should have become the point of greatest 

 weakness under war conditions. But such outcomes are inevitable. 



