Evening star., 1934-08-19

but the flood soon turned. In 1901
the Southwest was opened-Spindle
Top in Southern Texas-start' of
with well which flowed 100000 bar
rels before it could be shut in.
Production Scars.
Four years later Oklahoma and
Kansas were pouring out tens of
thousands of barrels a day. California
soon joined the big oil States. The
countrys production passed the 200,-
900, ,000- barrel mark in 1910, the 300,-
000, 900 in 1916, the 400,000,000 in
1920, the TOO, ,000, 900 in 1926, the 900,-
000,000 in 1927 and was over a bill
lion barrels in 1929. In the rs years
since the Drake well was drilled, the
United States has taken from the
earth fully Is billion barrels of oil.
Rack in Titusville, getting ready for
the celebration of this event which,
as the boys tell you, put us on the
map" the school teachers have been
doing their utmost to make the chill
dren oil-conscious. They begin in the
kindergarten.
What would the world do without
oil?" asked a teacher of 5-year-old.
Everything would be squeaking,
the little chap replied.
What is the most useful inme-
diate thing that America can do for
the allieS?" Woodrow Wilson is said
to have asked Clemenceau at the in
slant of our going into the Great
War.
Give us oil, oil. oil"
And we did give it to them. The
Office Of the director of Naval Petro-
leum Reserves tells me that according
to our Department of Commerce we
exported to the allies in 1917, 153,-
024, 1000 gallons of gasoline; in 1918,
1873 ,079,00 gallons. The shipment of
kerosene was still greater-303, ,629 900
in 1917, 299, ,131 900 in 1918. In those
two years we sent our allies more than
395 100000 gallons of lubricating oil
and close to billion of gas and fuel
oil.
Essential in War.
Transports, tractors, airplanes could
not function without oil. 1t was as
essential as powder, water, food What
Titusville and the State of Pennsyl-
vania are celebrating this week Is the
coming of product which has not
only taken the squeaks out of the
mechanical world, but one upon which
modern warfare depends SO utterly
that the whole international program
of the world has been altered to fit
the fact-a product so essential to our
peacetime functioning that should the
earth fail to give it to us the wheels
of the world would come to a dead
stop.
No sooner had Drake proved that
oil deposits could be reached by the
drill and his followers had proved that
these deposits were of wide distribu-
ton and apparently exhaustless, than
oil went into service. No industry in
history shows such an example of
readiness for a new natural resource.
Its uses had been demonstrated. The
processes for making naphtha, kero-
sene, candles, lubricants were simple
and well known. Refiners who had
been using Trinidad pitch and whales
for lamp oils quickly converted their
kets they had developed were only too
eager for the new luminant and were
rapidly extended.
Growth Fascinating.
The oil industry, in spite of con-
tinual changes, refinements, elabora-
tions at its every point, is today from
start to finish a steady, logical and
fascinating development of what we
had at the start.
Place a model of the Drake well be-
side the latest model of the oil well
supply companies and you know they
are not only of the same family but
the same species.
Yet Drake would hardly know his
way around a modern model oil field.
His bewilderment would begin with
the location of the we'll. He placed
his close to the spot where oil had
shown itself on the surface, near an
Oil spring-a practice which some
times worked and sometimes did not.
Others used hazel sticks, followed
lunches. All that has been changed
Geology has become the handmade of
the oil producer. The geologist creates
a miniature earthquake and applies a
seismograph, incidently blowing him
self and his crew to pieces at times:
or he tries the torsion balance locat-
Ing anticlinals and domes. It is hard
on the oldtimers; they sneer at the
man OF science as pebble pup" But
they are learning respect; the results
have been too impressive. Today
every great oil company keeps its own
staff of oil biologists.
Drake Would See Change.
Drake would find in the machinery
for drilling a multitude of improve
ments, the most revolutionary DOS
sibly the automatic electrically driven
drill. In his day and until recently.
the drill has been handled or guided
The driller on his high chair on the
derrick floor was as much a part Of
an oil well as the pulleys and ropes
and sand pump and bull wheel and
engine. Now electricity drills a
Stralghter hole, does it quicker. But
the automatic drill is as hateful as
the geologist to an old-timer.
Only one really revolutionary addi-
ton has been made to the oil industry
since the beginning-the demonstra-
tion, carried out in the face of ridicule
and unbelievable inferences, that oil
could be pumped over mountains to
the Seaboard. That demonstration
took the long-distance transportation
Of oil from the railways and led to
the magnificent pipe line system of
today-a system close to 112,OO miles
long, its trunk lines capable of carry
ing 100000 barrels-a marvel of
efficient operation
1t is worth noting that this reyolu-
tion was led by three men of Titusyille
David McKelvey, r. E. Hopkins and
B. D. Benson. Their contribution to
the oil industry, made in 1879, is
second only to brakes contribution.
made in 1859. He proved that oil
could be found by drilling, they that
pumps and pipes would carry it any
where.
Industry Threatened.
Not only has the Oil industry been
astonishingly progressive; it has been
equally adaptable. More than once it
has faced changes which threatened