Erasmus Roterodamus - "Selections from Erasmus"

Thomas Carson - "Ranching, Sport and Travel"

Laura Lee Hope - "The Moving Picture Girls in War Plays"

William Shakespeare - "Leben und Tod des Koenigs Johann"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Checking the Waste

M >> Mary Huston Gregory >> Checking the Waste




Until last year but one state--Indiana--had an effective law preventing
the waste of natural gas by oil companies. This law says in substance
that a man can not take the oil from the ground where nature has safely
stored it, unless he also provide a market for the gas which accompanies
it. It also says that neither the producer nor the consumer shall be
allowed to waste this valuable fuel, as such waste is against public
policy.

Mr. I. C. White, of West Virginia, in discussing this question at the
Conservation Congress said, "This Indiana statute should be enacted into
law in every state where these fuels exist." Since that time
Pennsylvania and Ohio have passed laws, which are said to be effective,
for the conservation of natural gas.

Much has been accomplished by gas companies, who, since they became
alive to the danger of loss of their investment, have been extremely
watchful of their property. In West Virginia the gas companies buy the
gas which has been obtained in the drilling of oil wells, thus providing
a market for the waste gas and making it possible to continue the oil
business and at the same time to furnish cheap gas.

Another hopeful sign is the pumping of all of the product of a well.
Formerly as soon as a well dropped greatly in production it was
abandoned, but now it is pumped until dry.

One method by which the gas from oil wells may be utilized consists in
compressing it in steel cylinders for shipping. This in a small way has
been found to be successful.

Experiments are being tried on a large scale in Ohio to prove that gas
may be returned to reservoirs within the earth which are tight enough to
hold it under heavy pressure.

Fuel gas made from low-grade coal is a satisfactory substitute for
natural gas. Like the natural product it may be piped for long
distances. Some natural gas companies have bought up the culm banks and
heaps of refuse coal, so that if the natural gas becomes exhausted they
can manufacture cheap gas at the mines and pipe it to the cities they
now serve.


PETROLEUM

Petroleum, or rock oil, is a dark greenish brown liquid which when
refined yields gasolene, naphtha, benzine, kerosene, lubricating oils,
and paraffin. The name petroleum applies only to the crude petroleum as
it comes from the ground, and the word oil is applied to the products
obtained by refining.

The early history of the petroleum industry in this country is
interesting as showing what great results spring from small beginnings.
From salt wells in Pennsylvania there was an occasional flow of
petroleum, but it had had no commercial value. Samuel Kier, of
Pittsburg, had salt wells at Tarantum from which he had accumulated so
much petroleum (fifty barrels) that he decided to try to dispose of it,
but there was no market. No one knew what to do with it. He then partly
refined it, making a poor quality of kerosene, and introduced a lamp
with a chimney. This proved so popular that A. C. Ferris, also of
Pittsburg, undertook to sell this in other cities, and these two men
not only sold the fifty barrels and the other petroleum that accumulated
from the salt wells, but they had created such a demand for the new
light that they could not supply enough oil, and in 1859 Colonel Drake
drilled at Titusville the first well solely for petroleum. In the
half-century since that time nearly two billion barrels, or almost two
hundred and fifty million tons, worth one and three-quarter billion
dollars, have been produced.

Petroleum is now mined, or drilled, in many countries besides the United
States, but the United States furnishes sixty-three barrels out of every
hundred produced in the world. Russia produces twenty-one barrels,
Austria four, and the East Indies three barrels, Roumania two, India and
Mexico one each, Canada, Japan, Germany, Peru, and Italy each less than
one barrel; so we can see that the United States is the one great
producer of petroleum, and that it is to this country that we must look
for the principal world supply for the present, and as far as known, for
the future. Let us see, then, what we may expect the United States to do
to supply this demand.

The known petroleum lands cover an area of about 8,500 square miles and
are in six large fields and several smaller ones. The largest and best
is the Appalachian, of which the best known is the Pennsylvania field.
It has a grade of petroleum that differs from any other thus far found
in the world. It is most easily converted into kerosene or lamp oil, and
contains a larger proportion of such oil. It is the finest petroleum in
the world, except that found in Indiana and Ohio, and that costs more to
refine.

The Appalachian field includes, besides Pennsylvania, western New York,
West Virginia, a narrow strip in eastern Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee.
These southern oils are of a much lower grade, but are better than the
Russian or other foreign oils.

The next great field is called the Lima-Indiana, and covers a
considerable portion of northwestern Ohio and eastern Indiana. This
petroleum contains less gasolene and less lamp oils, and more sulphur,
which makes refining difficult. The Illinois field lies next. Here, in a
strip about thirty miles long and six miles wide on an average, an
enormous quantity of petroleum is produced. This oil is slightly lower
in quality and contains considerable asphalt.

The mid-continent field lies in Kansas and Oklahoma. This petroleum also
contains asphalt and other chemical products. Such immense amounts are
produced here that it has not been possible to care for all of it,
either in the matter of storage tanks or cars for transporting it, and
as a result large amounts have been wasted. In Oklahoma within a space
of less than two square miles one million barrels of forty-two gallons
each of petroleum were wasted in the year 1906.

The Gulf field lying in Texas and Louisiana has been developed entirely
since 1901. The first well was drilled near Beaumont, Texas, as an
experiment to determine whether oil could be found. Small storage tanks
were provided and it was hoped to find oil enough to make drilling
profitable. The well proved to be a "gusher" of such magnitude that
before sufficient tanks could be provided, or the flow checked, more
than half a million barrels were wasted on the ground.

The Gulf petroleum contains a large amount of asphalt and a small amount
of gasolene and lamp oil. It has been used principally for burning as
crude oil in locomotives and has sold as low as ten cents per barrel;
but lately methods of refining have been perfected which produce good
lubricating oil and a gasolene of high value from these low-grade oils.

The last great field is found in California. The oil is similar to the
Gulf oil, and investigation has shown that the quantity is greater in
this field than in any other. It is used largely for fuel and power on
account of lack of other fuels in that region.

In addition to these fields there are small ones in Colorado and
Wyoming, and promises of fields in New Mexico, Utah, Idaho, Montana,
Oregon and Washington.

Estimates of the amounts of petroleum yielded are made by computing the
amount usually produced per acre, which varies from eight hundred
barrels produced in Pennsylvania, to eight thousand barrels per acre
produced in Illinois. In most of the fields it is about a thousand
barrels per acre. Even then the amount is extremely difficult to
estimate. The Geological Survey concludes that the lowest probable
calculation of the entire amount stored in the rocks of the United
States is ten billion, and the highest a little less than twenty-five
billion barrels. The last report officially published shows that we are
producing one hundred and seventy million barrels per year. If the same
rate of production continues, we might expect our petroleum to last from
fifty-five to one hundred and thirty-five years, according to the amount
found; but tables of statistics show that throughout the life of the
petroleum industry, as much has been produced each nine years as the
entire product before that time. For example, up to the present, we have
produced one billion eight hundred million barrels and if the present
rate continues, in the next nine years alone we shall produce an equal
quantity again. The causes of such rapid growth are many. One is the
great increase in the use of some of the products, such as gasolene,
which has increased many fold since the automobile became popular.
Another, and the greatest cause, is the ease with which any quantity of
oil can be sold for cash at any time, and at prices much above the cost
of production.

Another reason is based upon the nature of the product. In pumping from
one well oil is apt to flow in from other leases, under other farms, and
exhaust them without the holders of those leases having received any
compensating benefit. It is therefore necessary for each lessee to get
his share before it flows away. Under these circumstances, it is
impossible to prevent an entire field from being drilled over very
rapidly, unless there is a combination of all the interests; or unless
the law limits the amount that each producer shall extract per acre
within a given time.

Pennsylvania and New York have declined to one-third their former value
and yet it is only seventeen years since they reached their highest
point. This would seem to indicate that the life of that field will not
exceed ten years. West Virginia is producing only a little more than
half its former yield and is rapidly declining. Ohio and Indiana are
declining more rapidly than Pennsylvania. Texas is also in the rapidly
declining class, and in Kansas the production is only a fraction of
what it was formerly. On the other hand, Illinois, Oklahoma, and
California can be expected to increase steadily for several years.

Taking into account all these factors, it is estimated that the entire
supply now known to exist would be exhausted before the middle of the
present century. It appears more probable, however, that increasing
prices long before that time will help to conserve the supply; and that
petroleum will be produced for a long time to come, though not in
sufficient quantities for industrial and general use.

The principal uses of petroleum are for burning as crude oil in furnaces
and under boilers, particularly in locomotives. The refined products
have various uses. Probably the most important is the lubricating oil.
This is necessary in the development of all kinds of power. At least
one-half pint of lubricating oil is used for every ton of coal consumed
for power. All engines, all street and steam railways, steamships,
sewing-machines, clocks, watches, and automobiles, in fact all operating
machinery requires its use; so that a large amount of oil must always be
conserved for lubricating purposes.

Coal oil, or kerosene, may be regarded as absolutely necessary for the
lighting of houses or other establishments not connected with gas or
electric supply.

Gasolene is sometimes used for lighting, though such use is not common.
It is largely used for cooking, and still more largely used in the
various types of gasolene engines.

Naphtha is used for power, especially for motor-boats, and for cleaning,
in which it is very valuable by reason of its power to dissolve dirt.

Paraffin is used in polishing, in laundry work, for waxing floors, and
as a covering to exclude air in preserving articles.

Waste has been markedly absent in the petroleum industry. It is
necessary that oil drilling outfits shall contain steel storage tanks
for holding the oil when it is reached. Usually the supply is large
enough, but sometimes, as in the case of the big well at Beaumont,
Texas, the oil gushes forth in such volume that the drillers are not
prepared to take care of the overflow, and much is wasted before the
well can be capped. In general there is no waste in storage in this
country. In European countries where there is oil, the loss through lack
of tanks and by using wooden tanks which leak, is very great.

Another form of waste which is common in foreign countries, but which
has been avoided in the United States, is evaporation of gasolene and
similar light products when the petroleum is exposed to the air in open
tanks. This is the most valuable part of petroleum, and if it be exposed
to the sun a single day it loses greatly in value.

The refining processes of the petroleum industry are probably carried
out with better system and less waste than in any other resource, owing
to the fact that the business is controlled by large companies. There is
no waste material in its manufacture, except some slight residue that
might be used for oiling roads, instead of using the crude oil. The
principal waste lies in its use. In view of the fact that the supply is
not unending, is, indeed, rapidly disappearing, the uses should be
confined only to the necessary lines for which there are no substitutes
at similar prices. These are for lubricating oils and for the lighting
of homes. The unnecessary uses are for burning in locomotives and for
the development of power.

Whenever new petroleum fields are opened up, there is a corresponding
drop in price. In order to dispose of it quickly such petroleum is
usually sold for the lowest grade uses, and the price for this crude
petroleum is not more than one hundredth as much as for high grade
petroleum products. The report of the National Conservation Commission
is so excellent that it is quoted almost word for word.

"At present more petroleum is being produced than is necessary for the
demands of the industry. Within ten years the present fields will be
unable profitably to produce enough for these requirements. The only
direction in which production can be checked is with the petroleum
contained in public lands.

"Offering such public lands for entry at a low price is nothing more
than temptation to the private citizen to waste petroleum by over
production, since lands yielding hundreds of dollars per acre in this
product can be obtained for a small sum. Every acre of public land,
believed to contain petroleum or natural gas, should be withdrawn from
public sale and leased under conditions that regulate production.

"Its use for power is justified on the Pacific coast, if used in
gas-producer engines."


ALCOHOL

As a substitute for other fuels, wood, or denaturated alcohol, will
probably come into greater use each year, and is regarded by many as the
great fuel of the future, because the materials of which it is made are
waste vegetable products and will always be plentiful.

It is made from cellulose, the woody part of plants, and may be
manufactured from sawdust when freshly cut from live trees, from small,
and refuse potatoes, from inferior grain that is not worth marketing,
and from low-grade fruits and vegetables of all kinds. It is even said
that the hundreds of acres of sage-brush in the West that have always
been considered worse than useless can be made into wood-alcohol and
thus become a valuable product.

It can be used for any purpose that gasolene can, although a different
style burner is required. It must be made much hotter before it is
changed into vapor, and on account of this it has been difficult to make
satisfactory burners for all the kinds of heating, lighting, and power
work; the machinery being far from perfect as yet. Wood-alcohol can not
yet be made cheaper than gasolene, and is not so easy to burn, so that
it is slow in reaching an important place in the industrial world; but
gas and gasolene prices will advance, and better methods of
manufacturing and burning alcohol will be found, and then we shall have
a fuel that can take the place of either coal or petroleum for lighting
or power.

It is thought that wood-alcohol will be of especial use to the farmer,
since he has so many waste vegetable products, has so much need of power
in small quantities and is far from the sources of public service
power, such as electric and gas plants. Alcohol-driven motors can be
used to take the place of the labor of both horses and men on the farm.
On level farms they can run the heavy machines, such as mowers, reapers,
and binders, plows and cultivators. On any farm they may be used to run
stationary engines, to chop and grind food for live stock, to pump
water, churn, run sewing-machines, operate fans, drive carriages and
wagons and do many other things.

Wood-alcohol produces ammonia as a by-product, is used in the
manufacture of dyes and coal-tar products, of smokeless powder, of
varnishes, and of imitation silks made from cotton.


REFERENCES

Report National Conservation Commission.

Reports of Geological Survey.

Conservation of Ores and Related Minerals. (Carnegie.) Report Governor's
Conference.

Conservation of Mineral Resources. (U. S. Government Report.)

Industrial Alcohol and Its Uses. W. H. Wiley. Bulletin, 269.

Production of Peat in the U. S. in 1908. U. S. Government Reports.

Production of Oil in the U. S. in 1908.

Production of Gas in the U. S. in 1908.

Waste of Our Fuel Resources. (White.) Report Governor's Conference.




CHAPTER VII

IRON


We have already stated the importance of iron in our modern life. It can
not be overestimated. All the many articles of iron and steel, our
tools, our machinery, our vehicles, our bridges, our steel buildings,
and a thousand and one other things are dependent on our iron supply.

Of all the elements that make up the earth's surface only three are more
plentiful than iron, so that we might think that we should always have
an abundant supply of it; but when it occurs in small quantities, as is
usually the case, it can not of course be profitably mined. It is only
when enough of it is found together to permit it to be mined to
advantage that it is called iron ore.

Iron ore is found in only twenty-nine states of the Union, and eighty
per cent. of the present production is in two states, Minnesota and
Michigan. We can see that iron is very unevenly distributed, and it is
on a few regions that we must depend for all the future.

Before we can calculate how much iron we have we must understand that
it is not found in pure form, but mixed with various other substances:
clay, shale, slate, quartz, sulphur, phosphorus, etc. These must all be
removed, some by washing, but most of them by roasting, or "smelting,"
in blast furnaces, after which it is called pig iron. This of course
requires large quantities of fuel.

It is these things and also the position of the ore that must be taken
into consideration in estimating the amount of iron in the country. If
ore yields a large per cent. of iron in smelting, with a small amount of
waste, it is, of course, far more valuable than if the amount of iron in
every ton of material taken from the ground is small.

In all minerals, the relation of supply to price is marked. The cost of
labor and of power is exactly the same whether ore yields fifty-five
tons of pure iron to the hundred, or whether it yields only thirty tons,
but the price received is little more than half.

So if the price is low, it may cost more to mine and smelt the one
hundred tons of earth than will be paid for the thirty tons of iron that
the low-grade ore would yield. So the lands that produce only thirty
tons to the hundred will never be mined till the price of iron is so
high that it is above the cost of producing--that is, till it can be
worked at a profit.

The Lake Superior iron found in Minnesota is usually more than
fifty-five per cent. pure iron. That is, if a hundred tons of earth be
mined, more than fifty-five tons of pure iron would be obtained from it.
This is the highest grade of ore. Some ore is mined that yields only
forty tons or less. There are vast quantities, billions of tons, of iron
ore in the United States, that would yield less than thirty tons of iron
to the hundred. These low-grade ores and the ones known to lie so deep
in the earth that the cost of mining them is more than the finished
products of iron, are classed as "not available," that is, they can
never be profitably mined under present conditions. But we must remember
that as the higher grade ores are exhausted it will become necessary to
use the lower grades, and that prices will steadily advance as a result.

Iron is sometimes found almost directly under the ground, at other times
deep in the earth. That which is found just below the surface is, of
course, mined much more easily, more safely, more cheaply, and with far
less loss than that which requires deep mining. Such conditions are
found in the Lake Superior region, and there is almost no loss at all,
the low-grade ores being piled up at one side where they can be easily
reached in case of need.

On the other hand some iron mines now in operation are as much as two
thousand feet in depth. In these mines, as in coal mines, pillars are
left to support the rock above. A roof of the iron ore is often left
also. The low-grade ore is left in the ground and no effort is made to
preserve it for future use. These constitute the principal waste in iron
mining.

The pure iron of the ore is separated by washing out the clays and soft
elements, but the harder substances must be smelted by means of heat. In
the beginning this was done by charcoal, which is still used in Sweden.
The latest method is to employ electricity manufactured by water-power,
but most of the iron smelting in this country has been done by coal.
Every ton of iron smelted requires its portion of coal for firing. If
low-grade fuels in gas-producer engines, or water-power can be used it
will be a great aid in conserving coal.

If a limited supply of rather low-grade iron exists near a coal region,
it can often be mined profitably, when, if it be far from an abundant
fuel supply, it must be shipped to distant blast furnaces. The cost of
shipping causes ore containing a small percentage of iron to be classed
as "not available."

Sometimes a large company with many mines has several varieties of ore
of different strength and hardness. If these can be mixed to produce a
medium grade by adding a small amount of high-grade ore to a large
amount of lower grade, the value of the product will be doubled.

Sometimes, too, the by-products can be made extremely profitable by
manufacturing large amounts when the expense of undertaking the work is
too great to be attempted with a small amount. So if iron mines are
owned by a small company much ore may be classed as "not available" that
could be used by a large company. All these things must be considered in
estimating the iron resources.

The first smelting of iron ore in this country was done at Lynn,
Massachusetts, in 1645, using the low-grade bog-ores and smelting with
charcoal from the surrounding forest.

Now if we look over an iron map of the United States we shall find that
there are four hundred and eighty blast furnaces, but that only nine of
them are west of the Mississippi River and most of these are in
Missouri. The greatest of all the iron regions now lies in upper
Michigan and Minnesota. This furnishes eighty tons out of every one
hundred mined in the United States, but the smelting is done along the
southern shores of Lake Michigan. The reason for this is that the iron
region itself is far distant from a cheap fuel supply. Pittsburg,
Pennsylvania, has been the great iron city of the United States on
account of its nearness to great supplies of both coal and iron.
Birmingham, Alabama, is the heart of the great smelting region of the
South.

The iron is divided into districts as follows:

(1) The Northeastern, comprising the states of Vermont, Massachusetts,
Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Ohio,
supplies a little more than five per cent. of the iron mined in the
United States.

(2) The Southeastern, containing Virginia, West Virginia, eastern
Kentucky, and Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama,
gives us twelve per cent. of our iron.

(3) The Lake Superior district, containing the northern parts of
Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, supplies more than eighty per cent.

(4) The Mississippi Valley district contains western Kentucky, and
Tennessee, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas and Texas. This region furnishes
less than half of one per cent. of the total supply.

(5) The Rocky Mountain district contains Montana, Idaho, Wyoming,
Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, western Texas, Washington,
Oregon and California; and all this great region now supplies but a
little more than one per cent.

The official report, which is as thorough as can be made but is
naturally subject to mistakes, gives the amount of available iron, that
is, that which can be mined under present conditions, as nearly five
billion tons.

Let us see how long this may be expected to supply the demand.

Before 1810 the amount of iron ore produced was so small as to be
scarcely worth considering. From 1810 to 1870 a little less than fifty
million tons were mined, from 1870 to 1889 nearly 154,000,000 tons, and
from 1889 to 1907, 475,000,000 tons, or altogether nearly 680,000,000
tons. The production has been found to double itself about every nine
years. In 1907 alone it was 52,000,000 tons or about one-thirteenth of
all that has been mined.

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