The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1917-09-28
HOLLAND LETTER
The Biggest Daily
Financial News Feature of
the Country's Best Newspapers

That great body of representative
American business men who met at
Atlantic City last week heard moth
ing that gave them greater gra:ifi-
caticn than the assurance that no
matter what the demands may be for
mineral oil or petroleum, an abundant
supply will be furnished. provided
only there be economy in the use of
oil, and especially gasoline. The oil
situation some weeks ago gave the
government some concern. ProduC-
ton seemed to be falling off, and a
warning was given to the people that
at the prevailing rate of consumption
there would .e practically little or
no surplus OF oil within a yean
Earnest efforts were made to speed
up the oil industry, and the attention
of Congress was called to the fact
that the government had authority
over great reaches of oil-producing
territory in southern California
Heretofore the government has not
permitted any exploiting of this OIL
producing territory, nor would it I'M
dertake itself to utilize these re-
sources. Now, business men and the
government are assured that produc-
ton has been increased, and the out
put will be so carefully conserved
that there need no longer be appre-
hension of a dangerous famine in oil.
This applies, however, only to the
present, and to the duration of the
war. There Is apprehension that the
world supply of petroleum may be
exhausted within the next twenty-five
or thirty years. In fact, the experts
who are familiar with the productive
oil fields of the world are of the opin-
ion that this natural resource, now
so vital to industry Of all kinds, VIII
be exhausted by the end Of the next
quarter of a century.
What that would mean to industry
and especially to the newly developed
industries such as aircraft and to OIL
burning engines both for steamships
and the railroad, is not dihcult TO
conjecture. Either wholly unexpect-
ed new resources, vast in amount
must he discovered and exploited or
else something must be discovered or
invented which can take the place
of oil.
DR.. Edward Goodrich Acheson, the
discoverer of the process by which
carborundum and artificial graphite
could be secured, in an address deliV-
cred to the members of an impor-
tant scientific body two or three years
ago, stated that, in his opinion, 1t is
of far greater consequence to the peo-
ple of the United States and the
rest of the world, that there should
be utilization and conservation of the
inexhaustible resources which nature
provides, than that there should be
conservation of the eXhaustible re-
sources. The utilization of the stu
pendous and inexhaustible natural re-
sources is made possible by the ap-
plication of electricity in combination
with chemistry. This is a new sci
ence, whose beginnings were as re-
cent as the last decade of the past
century, or 1t may be little earlier.
1t was a utilization of this science
so far as it was possible at that time
to utilize 1t, which enabled DR.. Ache
son to produce a new commodity now
of widely recognized commercial value
in fact, two commodities, carbon
undum and artificial graphite. The
raw material used is furnished by
some of the inexhaustible natural re-
sources.
DR.. Aeheson pointed to the neces-
sity of discovering and perfectins
some commodity obtained by electric
chemistry from inexhaustible natural
resources which will make good the
inevitable exhaustion of the supply of
mineral oil. He also said that some
time in the future. perhaps not many
years hence, as the life of nations
is estimated, the world supply of coal
will be exhausted. But he felt conf
dent that electricity and chemistry
working in combination would dis
cover a commodity which could be
obtained from inexhaustible natural
resources and make good the future
Inevitable exhaustion Of the world S
supply of coal.
There has been in session in this
city this week q representative body
of American chemists. whose purpose
Is to aid through this science hand
in hand with electricity in making
, the United States independent Of 9TH
er nations, so far as certain commod.
tiles are concerned, and also to slim
ulate the wonderful work of research
now in progress. whereby electrical
chsmiatry may be 30 utilized AZ tc