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Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry Review by: Gail F. Moulton The Scientific Monthly, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Aug., 1939), pp. 179-181 Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/17042 . Accessed: 02/05/2014 17:50 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. . American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Scientific Monthly. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 62.122.79.30 on Fri, 2 May 2014 17:50:23 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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Page 1: Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry

Fundamentals of the Petroleum IndustryReview by: Gail F. MoultonThe Scientific Monthly, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Aug., 1939), pp. 179-181Published by: American Association for the Advancement of ScienceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/17042 .

Accessed: 02/05/2014 17:50

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

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American Association for the Advancement of Science is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to The Scientific Monthly.

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Page 2: Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry

nCK ON SCI1ENC\E FOR LAYMEN CIVILIZATION AGAINST CANCER' DR. LITTLE has undertaken a difficult

task in assuming the burden of instruct- ing the laynman in modern aspects of cancer research and at the same time out- lining for him the difficulties which arise in schemes for c anceer control-difficulties which are not only financial but also human. In so doing he has produced a readable book and one rather brimnming, with optimism. In fact one gets the im- pression that we are very nmuch "on our way" towar(I speedy control of this group of diseases-an attitude less shared by those who have to face the ever-in- creasing nmor-tality figures from cancer. Still it is impossible for one who heads the American Society for the Control of Cancer to assume a pessimistic mood toward the problem to which he has dedi- cated himself.

The book arouses several reactions iin the mind of the reviewer. How impos- sible it is for the individual to follow Dr. Little 's advice to " Train yourself to over- come fear by disciplining your mind tc face and consider the possibilities of can- cer before they become actualities. " The average human being just won't do this. 1tis mind can not be trained to anticipate lethal disease, and a brain so conditioned is a psychiatric problem. Agaill, there are the rules for inereasing one 's chance of avoiding caneer. The first three rules pertaining to oral cleanliness and dental hygiene, removal of certain moles, and protection of the skin from excessive solar radiation, are sound and firmly attested by long experienee. The remaining five, although usually stated as means of avoiding cancer, are, with the possibl]e exception of *the seventh, which pertains to gynecologic hygiene, wholly vague ancl unconvincing. Tight brassieres are men- tioned. In the old days it used to be the steel corset stay, but now that menace has been removed by stylists and yet we have the same incidence or possibly a higher incidence of mammary cancer. The rela-

1 Civilization against Cancer. By C. C. Little. vi + 750 pp. $1.50. Farrar and Rinehart.

tion between gastric cancer anid overeat- ing is improbable. Did not primitive man gorge and do not less civilized peo- ples stuff when the occasion arises and otherwise fast ? The feeding habits of English royalty in the days of the eighth Henry, as portrayed by Charles Laaugh- ton, seem to have been such that they all should have died of gastric caneer, and as for the effect of concentrated urine on development of bladder cancer one must remember that the dog is a souree of experimental betanaphthylamin blad- der cancer, and yet no aninial according to common observation has less tendency to retain urine in the bladder than has man's best friend.

These nmusings of the reviewer only go to show how vague the eauses of human cancer really are. When we come to ex- perimuental cancer, be the predominant factor heredity or be it a phenanthrene ring compound, we are on firm grounld at least so far as presenit knowledge extends, and the contrast between that sort of knowledge and rank medical superstition is obvious from Dr. Little's book. Speak- ing of medical superstition, Dr. Ijittle's illustration of the stuffiness of meetings of distinguished medical men is refresh- ing to the initiated.

A notable event in the annals of cancer took place with the presentation of Pey- rilhe 's essay before the Lyon Academy in the late eighteenth cenitury-an essay written in response to the question, Qtt'est ce que le cancer? Dr. Little's book an- swers it again for the layman and shows the progress made since that day, and above all how far we still must go before humanity can be satisfied. The humorous excursions of the reviewer do niot detract from the value of the book.

FRED W. STEWART

FUNDAMENTALS OF THE PETRO- LEUM INDUSTRY'

THE experience of the author, pri- marily in the production of petroleum,

1 Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry. By Dorsey Hager. Illustrated. xvii + 445 pp. $3.50. McGraw-Hill Book Compauy.

[79

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Page 3: Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry

180 THE SCIENTIFIC MONTHLY

qualifies him for undertaking a compre- hensive general treatise on the petroleum industry. Although the first three chap- ters, dealing with the place of petroleum in modern world ecolnomy, the history of the industry and the corporation organi- zation of the industry as a business, are lneither as well written nor as well organ- ized as later chapters of the book, they colntain a considerable amount of statis- tical data illustrating the growth and present importance of the industry. The 13 billion dollar investment in the indus- try in the United States and the estimate that the energy obtailned from crude oil is more than ten times the energy ob- tained from water power in the country are among the data given as proof of the importance of petroleum.

Mr. Hager has arrived at a more opti- mnistic point of view regarding the future supply of crude oil than imost experts in this field, but his method of approach to the problem is interesting. He points out that exploration has been more ex- tensive in the United States than in any other country and that the area of the United States is about one fourteenth that of foreign lands, excluding Green- land and other polar lands covered with ice sheets. He then applies this factor to the estimated future oil recovery of the United States to obtain a rough esti- mate of the future reserves to be dis- covered in the world as a whole. Two criticismns of this method of approach are immediately apparent. First, since the original oil reserves in most foreign fields have been only slightly depleted, a more correct base for the application of the area factor would be the ultimate re- covery of the United States, composed of about 20 billion barrels of past produc- tion plus the estimated future production.

Second, a mnore fundamental criticisnm mnay be made of the use of total land areas as a basis of comparison. As is showln by the tabulation of proven reserves for the United States prepared by the Amer- ican Petroleum Institute and included in

Mr. Hager's book, about 80 per cent. of the total is available in Texas, California alnd Oklahoma. As is well known to petroleum geologists, the great accumula- tion of oil in these states is due to the presence of basin areas in which great thicknesses of young and slightly altered marine sediments remain. There is no present basis for anticipating the dis- covery of important oil reserves except in areas having similarly favorable re- gional geologic conditions.

The sections of the book on the amount of oil recovered per acre and the acquisi- tion of oil lands and royalties should serve to show a potential investor in properties of this sort that there is a wide range in their value and that investments should be made only after approval by competent experts. Although the busi- ness of producing oil and particularly of drilling and completing wells is giveln much greater emphasis and in much greater detail than is justified by its place in the industry as a whole, this lack of balance reflects the experience and point of view of the author and may conform to the relative interest of the average reader. These chapters are well organ- ized and well written.

The chapters on transportation and storage would have been more useful if the accessibility of the major oil-consum- ing eastern industrial region to marine transportation and the advantage of cheap ocean transport for petroleum to fields near tidewater both in the United States and in foreign countries had been fully discussed.

The chapter on oil refining would have been improved by a few paragraphs pointing out the relationship between refining methods and crude oil require- ments. Due to improvements in refining processes there is to-day less difference in the refining value of different types of crude oil than at any previous time. The author might well have discussed at more length the effect of changes in refining methods on the demand for crude oil.

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Page 4: Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry

BOOKS ON SCIENCE FOR LAYMEN 181

Not only does cracking produce more gasoline per barrel of crude oil, as pointed out by the author, but improvement in the burning characteristies of the motor fuel produced has enabled motor mainu- facturers to design and build motors with higher compression. Such motors have higher efficiency and tend to reduce crude oil requirements.

In summary, although as indicated "Fundamentals of the Petroleum Indus- try" would be improved considerably by a different treatment of some of the sub- ject-matter, it is mainily sound and well written. It merits reading by those in- terested in this important industry.

GAIL F. MOULTON

FROM MUSCLE TO STEAM' ONE has only to read this excellent

book to realize what a tralnsformation of the world has been brought about in 150 years and mostly within 75 years by steam and electricity. A] though the author has written a straightforward ac- count of the development of the steam engine from the time of the experiments with air pumps by von Guericke (1602- 86) to the present time, fortunately he has done it with such clarity and with so many human touches that his story will be as interesting to the layman as to the scientist. No one can read that story without realizing that during the past two centuries the human race has passed through the most important period of its history. No:r will one doubt that in the perspective of some distant future the political struggles that have attracted, and now attract, the attention of the world have been of relatively trivial im- portance.

It is generally believed that James Watt, after noticing steam raising the cover of a tea kettle, was suddenly in- spired (1765) with the conception of the steam engine and constructed one. That

'A Short History of the Steam Engine. By H. W. Dickinson. xvi + 255 pp., 78 figures + x plates. Cambridge University Press (Macmillan Company). $3.50.

story is on a parity with the onie that a falling apple led Newton to the (liscovery of the law of gravitation. As a matter of fact, approaches had been made to the principles that underlie the stea-m engine for nearly 100 years. Among those who were working on the problem Thomas Savery (1650-1715) and Elias Newcomen (1663-1729) stand first. Each produced and operated complete engines.

Both Savery and Newcomen made use of the pressure of the air instead of the pressure of steam to operate their en- gines. They first displaced the air in cylinders by steam and then condensed the steam. The great advance in prin- ciple introduced by Watt in 1765 was that he employed the pressure of steam against the pressure of air on the oppo- site side of the cylinder head, and later steam engines used both principles.

There is a wide-spread belief, due in part to recent governmental propaganda, that water power is not only much cheaper than steam power but a rival of it. In 1929, according to figures r eleased by the World Power Conference, 79.1 per cent. of all mechanical energy generated in the world was produced by coal, 15.7 per cent. by petroleum and only 5.1 per cent. by water. The installed capacity of water power, however, was about 60 per cent. of that of steam, the low pro- duction of energy being due to the fact that generally water power is seasonal. In that fact lies its relatively high cost.

As interesting as the early history of the steam engine is, it is no more fascinat- ing than the recent developments of high pressure boilers and steam turbines. Since all these phases of the evolution of the steam engine are thoroughly covered by the author, including quantitative re- sults, the book gives a valuable survey for the engineer, as well as a thrilling story for the intelligenlt person who is interested in the forces that are molding our civilization.

F . R. M.

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