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believed to contain petroleum or natural gas, should be withdrawn from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 adva