PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS IN NEW YORK 



485 



Iron working demands by far the most lavish and unwarrant- 

 able use of gas of all manufacturing industries. A rolling mill 

 will range from 1,000,000 to 5,000,000 feet a day. How far will 

 a million feet go in the support of household use? A house of 

 12 rooms, using gas in cooking range, laundry, furnace, and in 

 six grates, uses on an average for the year, about 40,000 cubic 

 feet a month, or 1333 feet a day. 1,000,000 feet would sup- 

 ply 750 such establishments, or what the smallest rolling mill 

 would use in a day w^ould serve such a home for more than two 

 years. But, instead of using 1333 feet a day, the average resi- 

 dence will find all its necessities met by less than one half the 

 amount named. 500 feet will make an ample daily supply for 

 the majority of city or village homes. For such use the amount 

 consumed in the smallest rolling mill in a day will serve 2000 

 ordinary residences for the same length of time, or would serve 

 one such dwelling for 2000 days. A 10 pot window glass factory 

 uses what would supply 1200 dwellings for an equal length of 

 time. 



The sacrifice of human comfort and well being to business 

 greed finds a striking illustration here and can not be too em- 

 phatically condemned. The application of natural gas to manu- 

 facturing uses necessarily involves such a sacrifice. 



The country as distinguished from the village or the city 

 ought not to consider itself excluded from the benefits of natural 

 gas. It seems altogether feasible for well-to-do farmers in dis- 

 tricts where gas is easily reached to drill wells for home supply. 

 A well not exceeding 1000 feet in depth can be drilled and 

 equipped for flOOO or less. If it can furnish light and heat 

 for the home for 10 or 12 years the investment will be a safe 

 one even from a business point of view, to say nothing of the 

 incidental advantages that gaseous fuel brings. So also several 

 farmers whose lands are contiguous could unite in drilling a 

 single well and share its production in common. Such a venture 

 might be distinctly advantageous to each, from the point of view 

 already named, viz, dollars and cents. Whoever has occupied 

 for a year a dwelling adequately supplied with natural gas, will 

 .recognize so many and so great additions that it makes to the 

 comfort of life that he will not insist on a very close balance of 

 expenditures and credits in dealing with this subject. 



