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



toward that end. No better example can be brought forward than 

 the following table recently published by a large packing house 

 showing how by-products contribute to lowered cost : ^ 



Average price paid for cattle, per steer $84. 45 



Average price received for meat 68. 97 



Average price received for by-products 24. 09 



Total received 93. 06 



Expenses and profit 9. 90 



As to their social value — their contribution toward human conserva- 

 tion and welfare — ^modern civilization in the past few years has 

 become utterly dependent upon the aggregate of by-product sub- 

 stances, which have already entered practically every realm of 

 activity. Nay, more than this, civilization at this very moment of 

 writing rests upon the competence of toluol, an obscure by-product 

 of coal and petroleum, scarcely heard of a few years ago. 



Applying these conceptions to petroleum, we observe that petro- 

 leum refineries at present produce : 



Proportion- 

 ate bulk, 



Proportion- 

 ate value. 



Four main products 



About 200 by-products. 

 Waste 



Per cent. 

 About 80 

 About 15 

 About 5 



Per cent. 

 About 90 

 About 10 

 None. 



The petroleum refining activity is the largest and one of the most 



efficient chemically controlled industries in this country. Yet while 

 the most competent branches of this activity have carried the pro- 

 duction of the main products forward with effectiveness, they have 

 not been able, alone, to draw more than a modicum of value from 

 the by-product possibilities inherent in the resource. Aided by a 

 constructive economic policy active in the direction of shaping a 

 proportionated outlet for intermediate products and focusing a 

 competent campaign of chemical research on the matter, the pe- 

 troleum industry would be enabled to carry its by-product develop- 

 ment much further, to the relief of the cost now so exclusively 

 borne by gasoline, kerosene, fuel oil, and lubricants. Petroleum 

 and coal tar are the chief raw materials of synthetic organic chem- 

 istry, and the values hidden in these two substances, as already 

 so well known in the case of coal tar, can not be exaggerated in 

 prospect.^ 



1 Swift & Co., 1918 Yearbook, p. 32. This expression, of course, is conservative. 



2 Apart from the matter of by-products, the automotive industry can assist in main- 

 taining a balanced outlet for the main petroleum products by bending its technical de- 

 velopments so as to fit the resource in the vray of adapting its engines to handle a wider 

 range of oils. 



