SOME FACTORS IN THE GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 
OF PETROLEUM 
MAURICE G. MEHL 
Few industries have experienced such rapid or so compre- 
hensive development as has the petroleum industry. The use 
of petroleum and its products is so firmly fixed in the affairs of 
man and so important are these products to his activities of in- 
dustry and pleasure that even a slight reduction in the petroleum 
output would probably work real hardships on a large proportion 
of the human race. The discovery of new areas of accumulation 
of petroleum and the rapid development of these new fields have 
followed each other in rapid succession during the past few years. 
Production, nevertheless, scarcely keeps pace with the growing 
demands. 
Some look with alarm on the rate of consumption of our 
known supply of petroleum and many are already studying the 
possibilities of new stores from other sources or other regions. 
Not a few of the larger corporations are sending representatives 
from time to time to investigate the possibilities ip. unexplored 
or inadequately tested parts of the world. 
Whether an actual shortage faces us at some near date or not, 
certain it is that at some future time it will be necessary, or at 
least desirable, to determine what may be expected in the way 
of a world supply of petroleum. When prospecting is carried 
into regions of unknown possibilities, to countries not now im- 
portant as producers of petroleum, what is to be the guide; what 
shall determine the order in which the various “possible’^ regions 
are to be investigated? Just as today experts are able to desig- 
nate the most favorable places for testing a given region, will it 
not be possible in the future to indicate, within the confines of 
well founded theory, at least, a logical order in which the land 
masses of the earth should be tested? 
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Copyright, 1919, by M. G. Mehl. 
