PETROLEUM. 99 



Encouragement of oil-shale development. — Although the present 

 source of petroleum should be made to render its fullest service, 

 we should at the same time find out what is going to take its place 

 and prepare in advance for the transition, not ignoring the matter 

 until it is forced by sheer necessity.^ We have already seen that oil 

 shale is the only successor in sight, and indeed some attention has 

 already been devoted to this resource, especially as the richest part of 

 it occupies land in possession of the Government. 



But oil shale being a leaner resource than that now worked for 

 petroleum is not a rival but an understudy to the oil field. A shale- 

 oil industry will come into life when the situation is ready for its 

 advent. A constructive economic policy will neither force its 

 premature birth nor will it permit conditions to retard its inception 

 and growth when once its help is needed to supplement an inadequate 

 oil-field production. The oil-shale matter, then, is merely part of the 

 whole oil problem and can not be solved on its own merits alone. 

 Indeed, it has no merits other than those reflected from a growing 

 scarcity of petroleum. 



The oil-shale development will have to unfold under the influence 

 of an economic necessity for shale oil. A constructive policy may 

 contribute to that unfoldment in three ways, but further than that 

 it can scarcely go safely or wisely. 



It can, in the first place, stabilize the production of petroleum so 

 as to place this resource on the sound basis of ordinary mining pro- 

 cedure. With this done, oil shale will face a resource with which it 

 can cooperate, not an adversary which it must fight. So long as the 

 oil fields of the country fill all the legitimate needs for petroleum 

 products and contribute a large surplus for burning under boilers, 

 there would appear to be no pressing need for shale oil.^ 



Secondly, the Government can prepare for the time when shale oil 

 will be needed by establishing an experimental plant on a commer- 

 cial scale, equipped to work out on a practicable basis, with full 

 by-product recovery, the most efficient practice adapted to the condi- 

 tions of the domestic resource. Such a plant could start with the 

 technique developed in the Scottish shalft-oil industry, and by proper 

 research build up a process which would insure the home activity 

 from taking over any obsolescent features of the Scottish practice 

 or from passing through a stage of technological immaturity. This 



1 We must remember that this country, thus far, has never had to face the exhaustion 

 of a great resource. A somewhat analogous experience is afforded, however, in the case 

 of the virgin forests. 



2 It is obvious that oil shale, to be profitable, must yield a full complement of 

 products. There is still an oversupply of petroleum in respect to that consideration. 

 An artificially stimulated or premature production of large quantities of shale oil would 

 encourage the perpetuation of the current wasteful method of exploiting petroleum. 



