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Show Ifetd bOPES i ON 01 SHE BUFFALO. Peb. 16. Petroleum j I production In the United States has! reached 1U peak and probably will begin to decline within three rears, 1 Dr. Ralph McKee. professor of chem-leal chem-leal engineering at Columbia unlver- j sity. declared in an ad'lress Tuesday : j before the Buffalo Engineering society, There is no likelihood of the discovery discov-ery , of new petroleum fluids in this country. Dr. McKee asserted. But he I declared rich oil shale deposits, as yet practically untouched, are capable of supplying the nation's petroleum needs for hundreds of years. Ho predicted the extraction from shale would become one of tho greatest great-est Industries In the country- "It is not commonly appreciated how large these shale deposits are," he said. "If we consldor only those oil shales which will furnish a barrel Or gallons or better, of petroleum per ton of shale, we have in the Green River section of Colorado, Utah and Wyoming alone, sufficient to furnish 64,000.000.600 barrels of petroleum, which amount Is elcht times larger i ban the total of the well petroleum that this country has produced since iv,i..nel lr..k" drilled the first oil well in 1859 at Tltusvllle, Pa. It is mnr than fivo tims the tot.il production rf tho world sincr- well petroleum became commercial 60 years ago- "There also aro larKfe depofllts In XovaUa. California Kentucky, Indiana. Ohio. Xew Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and smaller deposits, though largo enough en-ough for commercial exploitation, In many other portions of this continent. There are similar deposits in ohr I parts of the world. "Of those deposits which are likely to be oxololtod In the next decade, we have variations In yield from 20 gallons gal-lons to 60 or even 80 gallons per ton. Tho large deposits of better grade will Kive about a barrel (42 gallons) of oil in r ton of rock. ' Tb demnnds for petroleum are Increasing In-creasing in the country at the rate of about 50.000.000 barrels a year. If this continues It will requlro each year 76 now shale oil plant.-', oach handling 25.000.000 tons of oil shale a day nnd representing fin investment of close to S 1 .000 000 each to Kivo sufficient suf-ficient oil to meet simply this yeajl demand for petroleum. We have no other source of fuel ol or gasoline sub- Kia stltuto In prospect which promises H furnish even a minor part of this il? " Xo snakes are fond on the Ber- muda Islands. |