The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-08-05
THE PASSING OF PETROLEUM N-By Frank C. Carpenter

VII D lA ll UN' trucks and automobiles Last year we | had in operation just about 3000, 900 auto cars and this vas the growth of only l2 years. In 1905 the number was less than 100000. During the first nine
 months of last year the cars increased Tn number more than three-quarters of a million and there will probably | be more than 4.000.00O cars in use | oy the time this letter is published. At the same rate of growth there will l be million more by the end of 1918. I Now. at a low average the annual 1 consumption of every automo bile is about soc gallons of gasoline, and at | that figure it will take 2,000, ,000, 900 gallons to supply the 100000 cars I we have now. That IS. we shall need about half billion gallons more gas | for this purpose than we were mak- | ing in the whole country three years ! ago, and the demand for export is con- stantly growing. Some new motor car | fuel will have to be discovered, and they are now planning to increase the gasoline product from natural gas and by number of processes which have of late been installed. In the meantime it behooves us all to save wherever we can.
 The demand for fuel oil Is increasing rapidly on account of the war, and much of this is sold in so near a crude state that many of the by-products of the petroleum are lost in the smoke Fuel oil is now used by our largest battleships, and 1t is employed also In the navies of Great Britain and France It is being consumed by many or our industries at home. Right near here are sulphur mines which use in the neighborhood of 100000 barrels annually, and the railways of Texas and Louisiana are now burning up H. 000.000 barrels of such oil every year. | The consumption of the whole country In 1916 was upward of 30,000,00 bar rels. The war demand for fuel oil Is said to be greater than the war de- mand for gasoline and the exports of such oil were about a billion gallons last year. The oil is easily supplied to the ships. both at sea and in the har- bors. It is also used on the torpedo boats and destroyers to make smoke, or "smudge." which conceals the fleet from the enemy.
 In addition to gasoline and fuel oil is the enormous demand for Tub ricants made from petroleum. This oleaginous fluid, which comes from the earth, Is the grease that makes the industrial world go round.
 
 watch to the biggest steam engine, is fabricated with 1t. It Is used by our loco motives, our dynamos and in the machin- cry Of the submarines, cruisers and bat tleships. Special oils are used for high speed engines and for the spindles of our cotton mills. There are oils for low-ten- perature ice machines, and others for hot cylinders of gas engines. There is not a big gun that sends It's projectile scream ing through the air that does not move upon coating of oil, and it is upon such lubricants only that we can keep moving the industrial machinery that supplies the demands of peace.
 With electricity and gas one might think that the consumption of kerosene oil would diminish. This is not so. We are now using more than 35 gallons of coal oil per family, and we consume more kerosene per capita than any other na- tion in the world. The use of coal oil for lighting is increasing among the millions of Asia, and if China should ever use as much as we are now doing, it's annual demand will be more than H. 900 0O0 900 gallons. That is three times as much as comes from all the crude oil of this coun- try and 10 times the amount we are now exporting.
 In fact, the consumption of petroleum is already so great that our supply will be exhausted within a very few years unless new oil fields are discovered. Ac- cording to figures given to Congress in 1916, in report from Secretary Lane consulting engineer of the bureau of mines estimated that our oil supply was enough to last only 28 years, and this was based on the annual product of 266, 000,000 barrels. Last year, as I have said, we took out of the earth almost 300, 000 GOO barrels, and if this increase continues our oil reservoirs will be exhausted long before the time fixed by the geological survey engineer.
 We have now 10 great oil fields in the United States. There is the Appalachian field, which takes in New York, Pennsyl- vania, southeastern Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee. This produced 24,000O00 barrels in 1915. There is the Lima, Ind, field, which is producing 4,000, GOO barrels, and the Illinois field, which pro- duces about 1S,00O,O00 barrels. Going far ther westward is the midcontinent field, consisting of Oklahoma and Kansas It produced 106,000,o00 barrels in 1915, and Oklahoma alone produced almost that much last year. Then there are northern Texas and northwestern Louisiana, which produced from S,000.000 to 100000 bar rels; the gulf field, which produced 21, 900, . 900 barrels, and the California field, whose output Is 90.OO0OO0 barrels and upward.
 Some of these fields are increasing their yield and some are rapidly be- coming exhausted. Nearly all of the eastern oil fields are well worked out. It is estimated that more than 90 per cent of the oil has been taken out of Ohio and Indiana, and that "A per cent has been taken out of the Appalachian field The midcontinent oil supply is half gone, and 40 per cent of that of north Texas has been used in one way or another. Not more than one-third of the oil of California has been taken out, and we have some other states which have yet to be mined. There is some oil in Alaska. and also in a number of other states of the west, such as Colorado, Montana Utah and Wyoming. Altogether the experts have estimated that we have between t,- 900, 100000 and 5000. .000,00 barrels left in the ground and that these lie un- der oil-bearing lands having a total area about as large as the state of Massachusetts.
 We are using oil so fast that when the history of our times comes to be written there may be a period known as the age of petroleum. The histo- rians will tell how along about the be- ginning of our civil war we began to get oil from the earth. and how oil fields were discovered not only in the United States. but all over the world. They will tell of the growth and value of the product and how for almost 100 years it lighted the world and ran the most of it's machinery. They will show how up to 1917 the enor- nous amount of 5000, ,000, 900 or 70O0-