50 BULLETIN 102, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 
4. By ignoring rate of flow or volume of gas to be delivered and 
the close relationship that exists between volumetric demands -and 
the constantly changing and uncertain and unpredeterminable at- 
mospheric temperature changes. 
5. General conservation methods in the field have not been fol- 
lowed in the past; gas has been produced, transmitted, and dis- 
tributed in a most wasteful manner, which has, therefore, very 
greatty depleted available supplies, highly desirable for peak-load 
service. 
6. The uncertain, migratory, and fugitive nature of the gas in the 
underground reservoirs, where it is entirely beyond the control of 
the human will, legal process, or contractual relationship, and yet 
where its expansive properties under the ground must be taken as 
the initial step for the delivering of service to consumers 200 miles 
away, obviously makes it evident that considerable leeway must be 
allowed in service standards. 
EXTENSION OF SERVICE. 
In considering the question of the desirability of making new ex- 
tensions after a natural gas supply has become depleted, so as to 
make satisfactory service for all impossible, two distinct view- 
points have been developed, namely : 
The Indiana Supreme Court in 1901 held that : 
A natural gas company * * * can not refuse to permit connections with 
its mains by unsupplied citizens because the gas pressure has fallen so low 
that existing customers can not be adequately supplied, and that the court 
should compel the company to permit participation in the supply of gas fur- 
nished by it, although it can not furnish enough to satisfy the needs of its 
existing customers. (State of Indiana ex. rel. Wood versus Consumers Gas 
Trust Co., 55 Lawyers Reports, 245.) 
The New York Public Service Commission, second district, in 1915, 
held that : 
Consideration must be given to a safe and adequate service on the part of 
the company, within its means and facilities, and if service of this char- 
acter is being given to a comparatively few customers in a certain locality, 
with the eliminated amount of gas available for such purpose, it is manifestly 
the duty of this commission to permit the continuance of such service rather 
than order the company to turn its gas into a larger field where a safe and ade- 
quate service could not be given. (New York Public Service Commission, 
second district, North Tonawanda case No. 4478, Feb. 25, 1915.) 
The Indiana viewpoint is merely a blind following of obsolete 
precedent. Furthermore, it is based on the erroneous theory that it 
is a matter of no consequence whether adequate service can be given 
to any customers, so long as all of the customers stand on an exact 
equality, and fails to recognize that there is a clear distinction be- 
tween equity and equality, and that the two are not synonymous. 
