WHAT SHALL WE DO WHEN THE COAL, OIL, AND GAS ARE GONE?

If coal, oil, and gas were suddenly taken away, all the nations would become poor and many of their industries would cease. Just think for a moment of the amount of work these things do for us and what an effort there would be made to find something to take their place!

Wood once formed the chief fuel. It was used only to cook our food or to keep us warm. Now fuel is required for so many different purposes that with the decrease of the forests wood has been found insufficient.

Peat is one of those substances that has been used in parts of Europe to take the place of wood, but it is used so little in our own country that many have never seen it.

Peat is dug from bogs or marshes. We might say that a peat marsh is the beginning of a coal bed. Peat is the partly decayed vegetation which has slowly accumulated in wet places. In the colder countries it is formed largely of moss and similar water-loving plants, but where the climate is warm other kinds of marsh vegetation, and even trees, aid in forming peat. Sometimes floods bring earth and deposit it in the marshes, in which case the peat is less suitable for fuel, but forms a rich and productive soil instead.

In many of the vast swamps of long ago, when there were no men nor even the higher animals upon the earth, vegetation grew very rank. It is believed that at that remote time the air contained more carbonic acid, a substance which promotes the growth of plants. Thus the plants in the warm, moist parts of the earth grew more densely and luxuriantly than they usually do today.

In the decay of this vegetation deposits similar to the peat marshes were formed, but they differed in being much thicker and more extensive. If the story of these ancient peat marshes had stopped here, we should never have had any coal. Fortunately it did not, for some of the swamps sank beneath the water of a lake or ocean and thick beds of gravel, sand, or clay were deposited over them. While buried deep in the earth, the decaying vegetation was heated and pressed together by the great weight of the earth above, and was finally changed to shining, black coal.

After the coal was made, but before men came to the earth, parts of the sea bottom with its buried treasures were raised to form hills and mountains. Then the rainwater began its work upon the slopes, and after a time washed away so much of the overlying material that the coal was exposed at the surface. At last through some accident, such as lightning perhaps, men learned that this black substance would burn. Coal was little used, however, as long as there was an abundance of wood and the needs of people were few.

As manufacturing and the use of the steam engine increased, coal grew in value. The business of mining coal finally became one of the great industries. The mining operations were carried on as carelessly as though the supply in the interior of the earth were inexhaustible. In the underground working it is customary to leave about one quarter of the coal in the form of pillars for the purpose of supporting the roof. At a little more expense other materials could be substituted for these pillars and all the coal could be taken out.

In using the coal we waste about another quarter. Stoves and furnaces are usually built so poorly that a large part of the value of the coal escapes as gas and smoke. In large cities and manufacturing districts the smoke becomes a great nuisance. In the making of coke from coal, enormous quantities of coal tar and gas have been lost. Most engines consume a far greater amount of coal than they should in doing a given amount of work. Most of us do not know how to use coal economically in our homes, and thus aid not only in wasting the coal supplies but in making the cost of living higher than it should be. All together, in the handling of coal we lose fully half of it. The coal supply of the earth is disappearing very fast, and at the rate at which its use is now increasing it may not last more than one hundred years.

If we cannot use coal without wasting so much, would it not be wiser for us to turn our attention more fully to the sources of power in the streams which are flowing down all our mountain sides? The use of this power when turned into electricity would enable us to save a large part of the coal, oil, and gas that are now used, and so make them last longer.

It is far easier to waste oil and gas than coal, for, when we have drilled holes in the earth, unless we are very careful the gas will escape into the air and the oil will become mixed with water, so that it will be difficult for us to get it.

Oil and gas are confined under great pressure hundreds and often thousands of feet below the surface. To make clear how easy it is to waste them, we might compare them to the compressed air in an automobile tire. If the tire is punctured by a nail, the air issues suddenly with a sharp, whistling sound until the pressure inside is gone and no more will come out.

For many years we have been puncturing the crust of the earth, where oil has been discovered, and letting the oil and gas escape. We have saved most of the oil, but nearly all the gas has been wasted. The gas will finally stop coming out when the pressure is gone, just as the air did in the automobile tire.

On the opposite page is a picture of a “gusher” in the Sunset oil field, California, which tells the story of how we are permitting the valuable substances within the earth to be wasted. In drilling this well the oil men suddenly struck a deposit of oil and gas under great pressure. The drilling tools were blown out of the well and a column of oil and gas shot up 150 feet. For a time the well flowed forty thousand barrels of oil each day, and an unknown quantity of gas. Much of the oil was scattered around the surrounding country, and all the gas was lost. Men worked for weeks making reservoirs of earth in an attempt to save the river of oil.

Another well a few miles distant struck an enormous quantity of gas. It blew off for days with a roar like that of the steam from a giant engine. Then it took fire, and the column of flame at night was a fearful sight. There was gas enough lost from this one well to light a city for months.

Gas has been escaping during many years from hundreds of wells in the Pennsylvania, Ohio Valley, Oklahoma, Texas, and California oil fields. The gas from all these wells together has been estimated to be equal in value to a river of oil flowing several hundred thousand barrels each day. In many districts the gas was nearly gone before people discovered its great value. It is impossible for us to realize the waste which this represents.

It has taken Nature a long time to make the oil and gas which we are losing. When she began this work, the oil regions which have been mentioned were beneath the sea. In its waters lived countless numbers of minute organisms, as well as fish of many kinds. As they died, their bodies accumulated in beds which finally became thousands of feet thick. Then the currents of the water changed and sand and mud were washed over these beds, burying them deeply.

Finally the bottom of the sea was lifted and became dry land. The movement squeezed and folded the rocky layers made of the skeletons of the animals and plants. The soft parts of their bodies held in these rocky layers produced a greenish or brownish oil and gas. The gas tried to escape from the rocks, for they were hot and it wanted more room. In some places it found openings through the rocks and escaped to the surface, usually bringing some of the oil with it. The gas was lost, but a part of the oil remained, forming deposits of tar. In other places the oil and gas could not reach the surface, but found porous, sandy rocks into which they went and remained until the oil driller found them.

The tar springs, or “seepages,” indicate to the oil prospector where deposits of oil may possibly be found. He examines the country about and, selecting a favorable place, drills a well. If he is successful, he will strike oil-bearing rocks. The oil may be a few hundred feet below the surface, or it may be a mile below. In the latter case it takes months to drill the well.

If a robber came and attempted to take by force the coal, oil, and gas which we are daily losing through our carelessness and indifference, even though he might put it to better use than we put it, there would at once go up a great cry. We would raise an army and fight for our property, and perhaps suffer great loss in defending it. But, day by day, without making any serious objection, we are letting these natural resources go to waste.

Perhaps in some far distant future, after we have used up the stores of fuel in the earth, we may discover something to take its place; but wise and thoughtful people should make the most of what they have.