PETROLEUM. 83 



ployment of lignite and other low-grade fuels, offers a wide field of 

 usefulness to the partial relief of gasoline, especially in motor boats. 

 Artificial gas may even become suitable for automobile use through 

 the development of appropriate methods of compression or even 

 liquification, so as to enable its storage in small compass. Even 

 without such treatment, but under the stress of gasoline shortage, 

 artificial gas has met with successful motor use in London during the 

 present war; motor busses and other conveyance carrying large 

 canvas containers filled with gas having now become commonplace 

 objects in England. 



Fuel oil ^ has come into extensive use in the United States, espe- 

 cially in the far West, as a substitute for coal. It is more convenient 

 than coal and is therefore adopted by industries wherever its price 

 is low enough to permit its use. Its employment in this way can 

 not be sustained, in view of the slowing rate of petroleum produc- 

 tion and the counter demand that will come in increasing measure from 

 the further development of " cracking " practice in refining and from 

 the wider adoption of the Diesel type of internal combustion engine. 

 It will soon be necessary, therefore, in any event, to bring coal and 

 hydroelectric power to the aid of a growing number of those activi- 

 ties now dependent upon oil fuel; and the whole matter may be 

 facilitated, to the benefit of the petroleum resource in particular, by 

 constructive action in respect to coal and water-power,* so as to make 

 their service in this respect more immediately available. 



THE SOLUTION. 



There are three outstanding features in the petroleum situation of 

 unescapable significance. These are: the strictly limited size and 

 decreasing availability of the petroleum reserve, the growing im- 

 portance of certain of the products made from petroleum, and the 

 tremendous waste involved in the current method of bringing petro- 

 leum into use.^ The first two circumstances, of course, make the 

 last important. If there were plenty of petroleum, waste in its use 

 would not matter. Or if petroleum were of no great value, merely a 

 luxury, neither waste nor limited quantity would make any great 

 difference. Even if the supply were limited, but sufficient say for 

 50 years, it might be difficult to sunmion any interest at this busy 

 moment to the issue. But petroleum is a basic necessity, as much so 

 as wheat or wool, and its exhaustion is already beginning to be felt. 

 The matter, then, can not be safely deferred. 



* Including crude petroleum. 



» See Parts 1 and 3. 



■ It would be flattering to present usage to estimate that the resource is made to yield 

 over 10 per cent of its latent value, considering the proportion left underground, lost in 

 extraction, and Inadequately used. 



