PETROLEUM. 
55 
ployment of lignite and other low-grade fuels, offers a wide field of 
usefulness to the partial relief of gasoline, especially in motor boats. 
Artificial gas may even become suitable for automobile use through 
the development of appropriate methods of compression or even 
liquification, so as to enable its storage in small compass. Even 
without such treatment, but under the stress of gasoline shortage, 
artificial gas has met with successful motor use in London during the 
present war; motor busses and other conveyance carrying large 
canvas containers filled with gas having now become commonplace 
objects in England. 
Fuel oil 1 has come into extensive use in the United States, espe- 
cialfy in the far West, as a substitute for coal. It is more convenient 
than coal and is therefore adopted by industries wherever its price 
is low enough to permit its use. Its employment in this way can 
not be sustained, in view of the slowing rate of petroleum produc- 
tion and the counter demand that will come in increasing measure from 
the further development of “ cracking ” practice in refining and from 
the wider adoption of the Diesel type of internal combustion engine. 
It will soon be necessary, therefore, in any event, to bring coal and 
hydroelectric power to the aid of a growing number of those activi- 
ties now dependent upon oil fuel; and the whole matter may be 
facilitated, to the benefit of the petroleum resource in particular, by 
constructive action in respect to coal and water-power, 2 so as to make 
their service in this respect more immediately available, 
5. THE SOLUTION. 
There are three outstanding features in the petroleum situation of 
unescapable significance. These are: the strictly limited size and 
decreasing availability of the petroleum reserve, the growing im- 
portance of certain of the products made from petroleum, and the 
tremendous waste involved in the current method of bringing petro- 
leum into use. 3 The first two circumstances, of course, make the 
last important. If there were plenty of petroleum, waste in its use 
would not matter. Or if petroleum were of no great value, merely a 
luxury, neither waste nor limited quantity would make any great 
difference. Even if the supply were limited, but sufficient say for 
50 years, it might be difficult to summon any interest at this busy 
moment to the issue. But petroleum is a basic necessity, as much so 
as ivheat or wool, and its exhaustion is already beginning to be felt. 
The matter, then, can not be safely deferred. 
1 Including crude petroleum. 
2 See Bulletin 102, parts 4 and 5, this series. 
3 It would be flattering to present usage to estimate that the resource is made to yield 
over 10 per cent of its latent value, considering the proportion left underground, lost in 
extraction, and inadequately used. 
