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



While these shales have only recently come into notice a similar 

 resource has for many years been profitably exploited in Scotland, 

 New South Wales, and France, where nature has been less bountiful 

 with petroleum; while in Germany the extraction of oil from low- 

 grade coal and other bituminous materials has become a well estab- 

 lished undertaking.^ The financial success and national importance 

 of the Scottish shale-oil industry is particularly significant, as this 

 activity offers an established technology and a basis of experience 

 for application to the domestic oil-shale matter.* A comparison of 

 the domestic prospects with the foreign practice, in the way of yields 

 and values, may not be out of place. 



General comparison between oil shale of Scotland and of Colorado-Utah.'^ 



Aver£^e yield from 1 ton oO sbale. 



Oil gallons.. 



Ammonium sulphate pounds. . 



Gas cubic feet.. 



Shale residue pounds.. 



Cost of production. 

 Value of products . 



Profit, per ton of shale . 



Scot- 

 land. 



24 



34 



2,000 



1,600 



1910 



S2.00 



2.80 



Colorado- 

 Utah. 



SO 

 17-25 

 3,000 

 1,500 



1918 

 $2. 50-$3. 50 (?) 

 3.25- 3.75(?) 



.75- .25(7) 



Use. 



Stibstitute for petroleum. 



Fertilizer; nitrogen products. 



Fuel. 



Brickmaking; road making; 

 possibly for extraction of 

 potash. Undeveloped pos- 

 sibilities. 



a Data generalized from various sources, including Bulletin 641-F, United States Geological Survey, 1917; 

 Bacon and Hamor, The American Petroleum Industry, 1916; Hearings on oil shales before the House 

 Committee on the Public Lands Feb. 26, 1918; personal communications from David T. Day and Rus- 

 sell D. George. The figures for Colorado-Utah are provisional rather than final, but are believed to be 

 conservative. 



It is apparent from this table and from the general situation in 

 respect to petroleum that domestic oil shale may soon come into com- 

 mercial importance as a producing source of oil.^ Just when will 

 depend upon the trend of the economic situation as affecting the pro- 

 duction of petroleum. 



As a matter of fact, considerable commercial activity has already 

 commenced looking toward the exploitation of the richer shale areas, 

 especially in the Grand River Valley region of Colorado and near by 



^The shale oil of Scotland has been of great service to the English Navy in the 

 present war by supplying many oil-bearing ships with fuel, to the relief of trans- 

 Atlantic shipments ; while the German oil has proved invaluable to that country in sup- 

 plementing an inadequate command of petroleum resources. 



- A good description of the Scottish shale-oil industry, with many references to the 

 literature, may be found in Bacon and Hamor, The American petroleum Industry, 1916, 

 pp. 807-844. 



3 " These shale areas will be developed in time on as safe and sane a basis as our 

 coal mines of to-day. When that time arrives, the remains of oil prospecting will have 

 fled and the whole complexion of oil producing will change. It will, literally, be oil 

 mining with steam shovels in open pits and glory holes ; and, later, tunnels and adits. 

 There will be no lack of oil products for several generations to come, but the true oil 

 fields of to-day will probably disappear within another generation and be replaced by 

 oil mines." Dorsey Hager, The search for new oil fields in the United States : Engineer- 

 ing and Mining Journal, Jan. 5, 1918, pp. 11-12. 



