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National Geographic : 1920 Feb
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Photograph from U. S. Geological Survey NUMBER FOUR WELL AT JOY FARM, OHIO, DRILLED IN 1864 AND STILL PRODUCING OIL the world economy or realize all the changes that have come about in its use within a decade or two. OIL NO LONGER OUR LIGHT BY NIGHT, BUT PREMIER POWER SOURCE When most of us were in school, "oil" meant kerosene, and gasoline or benzine was something to be bought in a bottle at the drug-store or the paint shop. In those earlier days the oil refiner put as much gasoline in his kerosene product as the traffic would allow; today the auto mobilist complains that his gasoline con tains too much kerosene. The refiner simply robs his less marketable kerosene of the more inflammable content; so that, as has been suggested, if Widow O'Leary's cow again kicked over the lamp, in all probability the spilt oil would not set Chicago or any other city on fire. In those earlier days, too, fuel oil played no part in industry. Then, petro leum's future mission seemed to be to light up the dark corners of the world to be the handmaiden of Minerva; today, oil has become the premier motive power, not only on land and sea, but even in the heavens above and the depths below truly the best servant of Mars and Mer cury. Marshal Foch is quoted as saying that "a drop of gasoline was worth in war a drop of blood," and M. Berenger, the French Commissioner-General of Petro leum, expressed the same idea when he called attention to the fact that victory on the battlefields of Belgium, France, and Italy "could not have been gained with out that other blood of the earth which is called oil." "And if petroleum has been the life blood of the war, it will be still more the life-blood of peace." The strategy of peace should, however, lead us so to plan for wise use of this precious fluid that Mother Earth will not too soon be "bled white." MORE THAN 300 PRODUCTS OF PETROLEUM The number and variety of uses of pe troleum and its products are continually increasing, but even more striking is our increased dependence upon a few of the products of the oil refinery, notably gaso-
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