Galicia and Roumania both antedate the United States in the oil business, Galicia at least having been the scene of distilling operations a hundred years ago. The Canadian system of boring wells was introduced into the Galician field at an early date, but bored wells were not general until com paratively recent years. Even now some of the supply comes from the old shallow wells dug by hand. The Roumanian localities especially were hampered by the mountainous character of the country with bad roads and railroads entirely want ing. Neither country had risen to a production of 1,000,000 barrels annually until about twelve years ago, when new discoveries in Galicia rivaled for a time the rich strikes at Baku and in this country. The output was more than doubled, rising to nearly 2,500,000 barrels in 1896, since which time it has increased over threefold.
The important Roumanian development has come entirely within the last ten years as the re sult of introducing bored wells, pipe lines, and modern refineries, in which American capital was largely interested. Now the Roumanian produc tion is ten times greater than it was a decade ago. Then it was only a third as much as the Galician yield ; now it stands a close second, but the yield of neither country is equal to the output from the old, worn-out localities in Pennsylvania. Neither dis trict has important markets outside of European countries.
Japan is the only other country in which the industry has risen to the dignity of producing 1,000,000 barrels in a single year, or what would be about the total from two-score average Rus sian wells. The Japanese industry has been in existence over 1,200 years but it had to wait for American operators to raise it out of the rut where it had lain dormant for centuries. In spite of its recent developments in answer to this American stimulus, however, the Japanese industry is decid edly insignificant, even from the standpoint of do mestic consumption. At the present time the im
ports of American kerosene alone exceed the whole yield of crude from the local industry. Japan is truly a nonentity in the petroleum business, when compared with other even third-rate countries.
The six countries, United States, Russia, Dutch East Indies, Galicia, Roumania, and India, produce approximately ninety-nine per cent. of the world's total supply of petroleum. A score of other places contain petroleum deposits of varying extent, and small quantities are secured for local consumption in most of them. In this class are found Mexico, Germany, Peru, Italy, Turkey, Persia, Egypt, Al geria, the Punjab, New Zealand, and Formosa; some of these places may become great producers in the future, but at present they do not begin to supply more than a small portion of the purely local needs.
The United States so far stands in a class en tirely by itself, having led the world for nearly half a century, unbroken except for the three years of Russian leadership just before the Texas and California developments began. Russia alone, at the present time, can be regarded as a worthy rival. None of the other countries have as yet passed the stage which this country had reached forty years ago. Discoveries similar to those in Texas and Cal ifornia may, of course, at any time, raise some ob scure locality from insignificance to the foremost rank in the space of a few years. The petroleum in dustry is, above all else, a thing of sudden changes. Yet, in the light of all present knowledge, Russia is the only rival which appears likely to threaten American supremacy in the immediate future.