The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-01-22
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
IN FOR M A TION
Blu RE AU
FREDERIC J. HA6KIN. Director.
Washington, D. C
OUR GREAT OIL RESERVE.
Washington, D. c.

Washington. d. c., JAN. 1s.-From
drawer In a tall oak cabinet the
geologist took flat bit of black rock
and a thin glass tube. Placing the
piece of rock in a mortar, he crushed
it into fine sand and poured it into
the lower end of the tube. Then he
lit a gas burner, which produced a
thin point of flf~ e. and held the low
er end of the tube over it. Gradually
the tube filled with thick, brown
liquid.
"Oil,'' the geologist commented
briefly.
The piece of rock from which this
oil was distilled came from Colorado.
where there are huge areas of it, and
the geologiSt was Dean E. Winchester,
of the United States geological survey
who has just returned to Washington
after an investigation of our oil Shale
resources. For the past three years
Mr.. Winchester has travelled with a
wagon outfit thru the Rocky noun
i tains in search of this particular rock
which yields oil. He has spent weeks
I in country practically uninhabited by
man, but underlain by ~'ch deposits OF
oil that in the years to come must
supply the ever-growlng demand OF
! American industry.
! During three weeks last summer,
! said Mr.. Winchester, I'VE travelled
| thru the mountains without once dis
covering a road. Our men had to go
|
| for our wagon outfit.
Yet within ten years this wilderness
| will be a scene of industry, for enor-
nous areas of it are underlain by the
oil shales.
| "Thirty-six square miles is a town
! ship in the west" the geologist eX-
planned. land in Colorado alone there
are forty townships underlain by oil
shales. In Utah there are even more
| than that" He estimates that there is
! oh On
| produce twenty billion barrels of oil.
The oil shale, while just beginning
to attract attention in this country,
| is not new discovery. In Scotland
| and France, the extraction of oil from
rock has long been profitable in
| dustry, but in the United States the
supply of oil from wells has always
been sufficient to meet our demands,
and it has been produced so cheaply
| that no attempt has been made to
| develop an oil-shales industry. In the
middle of the last century the Nor
| mons were running a solitary distilI-
| ing plant in Utah, but it was later
discontinued. All that our huge beds
! of oil shale have received are the
curses of American cattlemen, because
the soil over them is almost barren of
| grass.
Recently, however. the oil shale has
serves. The geological survey is be-
ing deluged with inquiries concerning
| the location of shale deposits; the
| bureau of mines is speeding up it's
| experimental work with oil .shales in
| its laboratories at Pittsburgh; and
many individual oil companies are en-
! ploying chemists for experiment and
research on the subject. For the ma
| ton is awake to the fact that its oil
wells are not inexhaustible. Moreover,
| the search for new sources of supply
| has failed. We have now reached the
absolute maximum of our oil produc-
ton from wells, but the demand for
| oil and oil products in our industries
| has just begun. Every year, more of
| our ships burn oil. Every year there
is greater numbeE of automobiles
| of greater horse power. Before the
| public that unless new oil fields were
| discovered. the nations supply of
gasoline would be exhausted in thirty
years.
| This threatened oil scarcity has
particular aspects for the reason that
oil is now in the first ranks of i'm
portant world commodities. Hereto
! fore. the economic prosperity of a ma
| ton depended on its supplies of four
comm odities-wheat, cotton, iron and
| coal. Germany's great economic de-
velopment began after she came into
| possession of the iron ores of Alsace-
Lorraine, while SPANS economic de-
| velopment has always been hampered
by lack of coal. But now a nation
I must also have oil. 1t was the rich oil
| fields of Rumania that enabled Ger
many to continue the war for so long
a period, and, in the meantime,
alarmed by the scarcity of the oil
within her dominions, she put her
I ffs-4e ,f1
means of producing oil. The Germans
are reported now to be producing n
good grade of oil from a very low
| grade of Ignite coal.
If the United States is to maintain
| its prestige as a great power, it must
either purchase oil fields outside of its
own boundaries or develop its oil
shaIes. The first possibility is fraught
| with danger, since it would mean the
| protection of property taxed and con-
| trolled by another nation. The Sec
ond expedient is far more practical,
but will require a great deal of de-
velopment.
What is needed at present is a
! cheaper and more efficient method of
turning the shales into oil. For this,
machinery must be developed The
methods used by the Scot and the
| French might, of course, be imported,
but the oil industry believes that a
DSLIeT TlelnOO can De deNeIOpeQ mere
in America. The oil shales found in
| France and Scotland are not of the
same variety as those found in our
| Rocky mountains, which belong to a
| younger geologic period and have a
| different chemical CO IMPOSITION. Ameri-
cans feel certain they can develop
something better. altho one Scottish
machine has already been installed by
an American oil concern, with a view
to testing it's power.
The theory of the existence of the
oil shale is almost as interesting as the
oil shale itself. Biologists, in study
ing various sections of this shale for
alton. discovered that it contained
innumerable fossils of ancient vege-