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Show tion, once seriously impaired, may never be replaced. Of all the products of petroleum, the mo.-:t insistent demand today is for gnso-l:ne. gnso-l:ne. Its production amounted in 1316 to 50.000.000 barrels; in 1IH7 to 68.000,000 and in laiS to 85.601,150 barrels the latter lat-ter equivalent to 4,27 8,057,000 jrallons, figurine gallons to the barrel. Of this ht'tfe li18 production American pleasure vehicles alone consumed over 3.000,000,-000 3.000,000,-000 trallona, leaving less than a billion gallons for trucks, tractors, boats, stationary sta-tionary engines, etc.. and for export re-Quiremenus. re-Quiremenus. Farm tractors alone, an ln-fc-mt industry, increased 100 per cent in Vila arid the department of agriculture savs thai more than 300,000 will be in use fn the United States alone in 1919. When you stop to think that there are more than 4,000.000 farms of 50 acres each in the United States the possibilities of the tractor are beyond calculation. I have seen them at work, and talked to the men who are using them. Without doubt the day of the horse and mule in 1 heavv farm work has passed, never to ! return, and the tractor, relatively speaking-, is certain to parallel the Ford flivver. fliv-ver. The same is true of motor trucks, where again we find an Increased production pro-duction in 1918 of 100 per cent over 1917. Add to this the government's estimate of an annual domestic increase in the consumption con-sumption of gasoline of 500.000,000 gallons, gal-lons, and it is easy to see what is going to happen. Either more oil, rich in gasoline, gaso-line, must be found, or the government will step in and force conservation. In either case higher prices would seem to be inevitable. In either case enormous profits for producers are assured, for we must have gasoline and lubricants or industry will collapse. William C. Van Antwerp in Boston News Bureau. OIL WORLD'S GREAT ASSET, IS HUNG Petroleum Used as Fuel in Ancient Babylon 2000 Years Before Christ. World Faces Serious Shortage Short-age of Most Indispensable Indispensa-ble Product. Oil has become the most important commodity in the world, and the world's most valuable asset. Its earliest recorded use as fuel, lubricant lubri-cant and medicine was in ancient Babylon Baby-lon and Nineveh 2000 years before Christ, and long1 before that remote period it was undoubtedly employed by the Chinese. Chi-nese. Herodotus, Pliny and Plutarch dimly foresaw its value and dwelt upon its uses. In the seventh century it was called "burning water": in the thirteenth century pilgrims at fiaku worshiped it as one of God's miracles; in Galicia in the fifteenth century its recognized medicinal qualities caused it to be termed "Karth Balsam" ; three hundred years later It was known as "Barbados Tar" and "liquid bitumen." Although hundreds of scientists from Humboldt down to the present day have tried to trace its on pin, nobody knows today exactly what it is or whence it comes. Whether its source lies in or-g-anfc or inorganic matter whether it arises from the decomposition of animal or vegetable organisms, or both is a problem over which a world of scientists have been pondering and differing for more titan a century. Origin Disputed. But, while we are ignorant of the why and wherefore of petroleum in its pools and pockets deep down in the earth's crust, we are not in doubt as to its" practical application to the needs of humanity. hu-manity. If you will but glance about, you will find it everywhere. No mechanism can be run without it; no power can be maintained without it, no mechanical friction can exist without it. Wherever there is illumination or lubrication or insulation in-sulation or propulsion, there is oil in one form or another. There is oil in rubber, leather, paint, varnish, cement, glue, resin, dyes, vaseline ointment, , chewing gum, candy and moving pictures, i The chair on which you sit, the telephone, ! the telegraph, the 'newspaper, the typewriting type-writing machine, the ink, the pen, the , book, the contrivance that carries you to your office these are but a very few of the things that are dependent upon petroleum or its derivatives. The steamboat steam-boat could not have been invented without with-out it, nor could the cotton gin, the electric elec-tric light, the airplane, the sewing machine, ma-chine, the printing press, the Pullman car, the pneumatic tire or the photograph. More important still, the great European war could not have been won without it, for, as a British admiral has expressed It, "we floated to victory on a. wave of oil' American oil at that. From Babylon to Bayonne. "Where once the ancient watchmen dipped the magic liquid from its pool and burned it in their stone cups on the walls of Babylon, there are now persons employed em-ployed in exploring for it, drilling for it, taking it from its dark recesses, piping it over immense distances, distilling and refining it, and distributing it in tank wagons, tank cars, tank steamers and tin cans all over the earth. Not hundreds of millions of dollars, but billions, have been made in oil in America alone, and un imagined fortunes will yet be made. The market value of the Standard Oil company's properties alone in June, 1919, was above $2,500,000,000. Its possibilities are romantic and spectacular in the extreme. ex-treme. It appeals to the vision; it tugs at the imagination. And let us not forget that, as the origin of all wealth is in the earth the symbols of that wealth being g-oods, buildings and securities so the men who play a part in tilling the soil, and in producing coal, metals and oil, are really the men who originate the nation's na-tion's wealth. They are America's best citizens. They daily contribute to the spirit of adventure, of enterprise and of speculation the spirit that has made the nation rich and powerful. They are, in the vernacular, "good men to tie to." From 1860 to the end of 1918 there was produced and marketed in the United States oil amounting to 4,598,144,000 barrels, bar-rels, and in January, 1919, the United States geological survey estimated the available oil left in the ground at 6,740.-000,000 6,740.-000,000 barrels. The fact that there is more oil fn the ground than has been taken out does not mean, however, that the yearly output will increase. Shortage Faced. That the country is at present face to face with a serious shortage of petroleum, particularly of light oils of paraffine base and large gasoline content, is the opinion of all the government and private pri-vate authorities. During the great European Eu-ropean war oil producers did their utmost ut-most to speed supply up to demand and failed. Not only that, but they failed In 1918 to equal the production of 1917, the shortage amounting to nearly 3,Q00'00 barrels. From this it is obvious that the increased output from new fields has not supplied the deficiency arising- from decreased de-creased output In old fields. The amount of crude oil held in storage in the various vari-ous pipe lines and storage tanks in the Pennsylvania, Limn. Kentucky, Illinois and midconttnent fields was reduced to the extent of 2,210,09.24 barrels during the month of May, i j 19. The amount of crude oil held in storage by the.se pipe lines and tanks at the close of busings May 31, 1E09, was C7.644.37?, 5 barrels. The stocks of the same companies at the close of May, 1918, were S9.86ij.771 barrels, bar-rels, which shows a decrease for the year of 22,216.39 barrels. At the present rate of consumption and decrease of crude stocks there will not be a barrel of high-grade on above ground in storage stor-age at the end of three years in these districts. Gasoline in Demand. A consideration of these fa-ts leads tc certain vital conclusions, petroleum has become so essential to the industrial life of the nation that new productive fields must be found and developed, or conservation, rigorously enforced by the government, will be inevitatde;. This means higher pries, a fact generally recognized rec-ognized by the .Standard Oil company and by such solid ind-peji(if;rjts as Jiene-dum, Jiene-dum, Doheny, .Sinclair and :osden. No less an authority than Mark iqua, Jv-ad of the government's bureau of oil supplies sup-plies during the war and an expert of established reputation, is alren dy advocating advo-cating Kane and prudent pli'"!; "of conservation. con-servation. All these men realize thnt the supply of oil is limited, that not a drop should be wasted, and that produc- |