i86 



The National Geographic Magazine 



Expedition of 1901-1904. Captain 

 Scott shows that the mass of ice seen 

 by Ross is in reality an extensive gla- 

 cier resting on land and covering the 

 land like the ice cap of Greenland. The 

 glacier is about 700 miles wide, and 

 reaches the sea through a plain lying 

 between Victoria Land and Edward VII 

 Land. The German expedition under 

 Von Drygalski, working 80 degrees of 

 longitude farther west, also found a 

 somewhat similar expanse of ice-capped 

 land, whose limits they were unable to 

 trace, but which is apparently a part of 

 the same Antarctic continent. 



THE NATURAL-GAS, OIL, AND COAL 

 SUPPLY OF THE UNITED STATES 



IT would appear from Mr F. H. Oli- 

 phant's report on the " Production 

 of Natural Gas in 1902," published by 

 the Geological Survey, that all the coun- 

 tries of the world combined produced 

 in 1 903 only about 1 ^2 per cent as much 

 natural gas as the United States. Our 

 production in value amounted to $30,- 

 867,668. The reckless and appalling 

 waste that followed the discovery of 

 the use of the gas has been checked. 

 The economy has come rather late, but 

 enough of the original supply remains, 

 stored principally in the deep and pro- 

 lific sands of northern and southwestern 

 Pennsylvania and western Virginia, to 

 furnish the ideal household fuel for 

 many years. 



In the forty-odd years since Colonel 

 Drake discovered petroleum on the 

 waters of Oil Creek, near Titusville, 

 Pa., no less than 1,165,280,727 barrels 

 of crude petroleum had been produced 

 to the end of 1902. That means that if 

 2^ feet were allowed for the height of 

 a barrel and if these barrels, filled with 

 all the domestic oil that has been pro- 

 duced, were laid so that their heads 

 touched, they would encircle the earth 

 2% times. 



Of this total production, Pennsylvania 

 and New York produced 53.9 per cent, 



Ohio 24.3 per cent, West Virginia 11.3 

 per cent, Indiana 3.9 per cent, Califor- 

 nia 3.6 per cent, Texas 2.1 per cent, 

 leaving .9 per cent to be supplied by 

 the States of Kansas, Colorado, Louis- 

 iana, Illinois, Missouri, Indian Terri- 

 tory, Wyoming, Michigan, and Okla- 

 homa Territory. These figures are 

 from Mr F. H. Oliphant's report on 

 ' ' The Production of Petroleum in 1902. ' ' 

 The United States is now producing 

 a little more than one-third of the en- 

 tire coal output of the world. Her pro- 

 duction reached 301,582,348 short tons 

 in 1902, while Great Britain, so long 

 the chief coal supplier of the world, 

 produced 47,000,000 tons less, or 254,- 

 346,447 short tons, and Germany 165,- 

 826,496 tons. This estimate is from the 

 report of the Geological Survey on ' 'Coal 

 in 1902," prepared by E. W. Parker. 



THE DEALINGS OF THE UNITED 

 STATES WITH THE NATIONS OF 

 THE WORLD. 



THERE is so much interest at the 

 present time in the commercial 

 relations of the United States with all 

 nations that the following table, showing 

 the extent of our dealings with the prin- 

 cipal countries of the world, is specially 

 useful. The table is from the Statistical 

 Abstract of the United States, just pub- 

 lished by the Bureau of Statistics, and 

 gives the figures of the latest available 

 year, 1903 in most cases. 



It is interesting to observe that the 

 exports of the United States exceed that 

 of any other nation. Last year we sent 

 to Russia $7,518,177 worth of goods, 

 to Japan $21,622,603, to China $22,- 

 698,282, and received from Russia 

 $7,262,757, from Japan $40,597,582, 

 and from China $26,182,133. Many 

 will be surprised to learn that the foreign 

 trade of the Netherlands nearly equals 

 that of France, and is surpassed only by 

 the United States, the United Kingdom, 

 Germany and France, being more than 

 double that of Russia. 



