Ogden Standard-Examiner | 1920-05-02 | Page 5 | Question of Oil Supply for Future, Though Troubling Many, is Not Generally Understood

QUESTION OF OIL SUPPLY FOR - FUTURE, THOUGH TROUBLING MANY, SS NOT GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD Why are we worried about oil? Our future oil supply is a question whlcl. is troubling automobilists, captah.s of Industry and scientists, yet tho reasons rea-sons for this concern are not understood under-stood by many citizens, accoidingr t George Otis Smith, director of tne United States tfeoloKical survey. In a most 'interesting: communication rx-plalning rx-plalning tho situation Director Smith says: "In the course of the centuries the raw material issuo changes. Jn the longb'ow epoch of England's military strength the conservationist fc.uert a depletion of the yew-wood, which might slve the Teuton, backed up b' tage in light ordnance. Later. w!;n his larger forests, an obvious advan-Great advan-Great Britain's naval power depended j upon her wooden ships of war, tho anxious naval chief foresaw a possible j shortage of oak which made tho walls which stood between England and her enemies. "Today those who plan for tho fu-1 ture prosperity of their nation realize the extent to which other raw materials mate-rials are essential to the general well-being, well-being, and for some of these we can see no adequate substitutes "Foremost among these most useful use-ful and least abundant, if not, indeed, Irreplaceable commodiitics stands minernl oil. or petroleum, and nit only the conservative Briton, buc ti.o more optimistic American may well ask himself: 'Where will my children and children's children get tho oil im..." 1 1 1 imnnnmrTTT 1 1 u i inTTRftr'"" ' that they may need in ever-Increa-Ing amounts?' "But while the United Stales nas contributed far more than half 61 per cent) of the oil that the world has used for nearly sixty years, wo have already reached the point whore we are consuming more oil than wo produce. pro-duce. Is this position of the world's greatest user of petroleum as safe as it Is spectacular? "Wo aro world's greatest consumers of petroleum, but. Impressive as nre the 1918 figures of consumption 413,077,113 barrels no mind otiii easily grasp the idea-of that quantity. Truly it is a flood of oil. for if spread oov tho sixty square miles of the District of Columbia these -113,000,000 barrels would cover the area tc a depth of nearly' a foot and a half. "Beginning with four miles of iron pipe laid down in western Pennsjl-vanla Pennsjl-vanla at the close of the civil war, this system now embraces a huge .let-work .let-work of buried pipes from four to eight inches in diameter, trunk lines and laterals, aggregating nearly 30.-000 30.-000 miles. "When most of use were in scneol 'oil' meant kerosene, and gasoline or benzine was' something to be bought in a bottle nt tho drufer store or paint shop. Today oil has become the premier pre-mier motive power, not only on land and sea, but oven in the heavens above and the depths below t.uly the best servant of Mars and AIv,r- "Marshal Foch Is quoted as say. v.'-,' IH that 'a drop of gasolino was wortS i.i war a drop of blood.' "The number and variety of ujcj of petroleum and its products a:u-constantly a:u-constantly increasing, but even n:oro -striking is bur increased dependence upon a few of the products of th oii lcfinery, notably gasoline, kerosene, the many types of lubricating oiis and jH "There are said to be 300 or moro IH products of petroleum, each with its IH own use. Some of these products serve merely our convenience, such as artificial 'vanilla flavoring, or tne covering of paraffin on the jar of jelly or marmalade; others were" found during the war poriod to be ab- H solutely essential to industry on a II large scale, for, example, tho heavy oil jfl used in tempering steel plates. "It is when we think of the mar- . H velous growth of the automotive in- H dustry that we realize n futuro dc- fl maud for lubrication that staggers oven tho prophetic statistician. " Ith more than C, 000, 000 pleaa-arc auto-mlbiles auto-mlbiles operated, in the United Seated dlone, we have an annual consump- . tlon, estimated by tho officials of the, vM foremost company manufacturing" high-grade lubricants, at 120,000,000 gallons of lubricating . oil, where twenty -years ago the demand for tMs JjA purpose was practically nothing."