GENERAL SUMMARY. 159 



(6) cooperate with municipal enterprises to duplicate this model, and (c) 

 keep track of the situation the country over, and in general serve as 

 a clearing house for the balanced advancement of the whole matter. 

 In general the by-products turned out will find a ready market, but 

 their disposition may be enhanced by a constructive program look- 

 ing toward a proportionated development of those various industries 

 which carry forward the first products into a diverging series of 

 refinements. In a word, this organization will be in a position to 

 lend its influence to a constructive use of the principle of multiple 

 production. The time is so ripe for the full utilization of coal that 

 there would seem to be wanting merely the central agency, such as 

 has been sketched above, to set the whole thing in motion. Not only 

 would the gain accrue to fuel, but in this way a new standard would 

 be set for the public utilities in general.^ 



PROBLEM OF OIL. 



Petroleum presents an entirely different problem from coal and 

 water power. The issue is technically more complicated than is the 

 case with its two companions, because of the fact that most of the 

 petroleum is subjected to various degrees of refining and hence 

 brought into use in the form of a number of products of varjdng 

 importance and value. These products are gasoline, kerosene, fuel 

 oil, lubricating oil, and a group of by-products. The utihzation of 

 petroleum involves considerable waste, for the total output is not 

 turned into the most valuable range of products attainable. This is 

 due to the fact that production is far in excess of the demand for high- 

 use products. The wastes in utilization go back, then, to the fact 

 that there is a gross overproduction of the crude product. This over- 

 production results from the small-unit competitive type of mining in 

 vogue in the United States, whereby the geologic unit or pool is 

 divided arbitrarily into many small holdings separated by vertical 

 boundary planes. Petroleum is a migratory mineral moving under- 

 ground in the direction of lowered pressure ; hence each individual 

 producer is forced to race with his neighbor for the extraction of the 

 product. This type of procedure is the inevitable result of such cir- 

 cumstances, and not only contributes an output far in excess of what 

 is legitimately needed, therefore causing the sm^plus to be used in 

 lieu of coal and water power, but it also contributes to the practical 

 destruction of a large proportion of the oil underground so as to put 

 it out of reach of future recovery. The total losses underground, in 

 handling and in utihzation, are estimated to run up to 90 per cent of 

 the resource. 



1 It would appear that this matter would also enlist the active Interest and cooperation of the Chamber 

 of Commerce of the United States of America. 



