Nearly all the important South American coun tries contain known petroleum-bearing areas, though Peru alone can boast at present an actual industry of any prominence. Brazil, Argentine, Chile, Bolivia, Colombia, and Venezuela, all fur nish surface indications of extensive desposits, but, with few exceptions, systematic development is yet to begin. What such operations might yield is purely a matter of conjecture. Companies have already been formed in Chile and the Argentine to carry on operations, and it is not unlikely that their ventures, if successful, will lead to an impor tant petroleum industry in South America. The lack of capital appears to be the principal obstacle to overcome.
Africa is entirely too little known to allow any satisfactory estimation of its petroleum possibil ities. Deposits are, however, already being devel oped in Algeria and Egypt, where bright prospects are said to exist. South Africa, too, has lately been added to the list, most pronounced indica tions of petroleum having been found in the Walkerstroom district. An abundant local supply of good fuel oil would be of incalculable assist ance in the industrial development of this region.
Nature's vast and mysterious underground store house doubtless contains many other accumula tions of petroleum which are now unknown—per haps never will be known ; accumulations which may be much greater than any so far tapped by man. Any one of a hundred known indications may lead the way to another Baku, for there is no logical reason why other equally productive areas should not exist. But, without unknown localities to be discovered in the future, without productive localities of the Baku type, there are apparently enough proven fields in existence to insure the world's supply of petroleum for some time to come. When these fields have repeated the history of Pennsylvania or Ohio, the end of the industry will be at hand. Everything, of course, depends on the rate at which consumption increases during the next fifty years, and the results obtained by future systematic developments in the fields scat tered all over the different continents. Should every new field prove to be a second Spindle Top, enormous overproduction would be quickly fol lowed by practical exhaustion. A comparatively
few developments like the great Baku or even the Appalachian field, on the contrary, will suffice to keep the industry going for many generations. Where the world would look for light, if the sup ply should fail, cannot be answered easily.
The forests can be saved or restored by human efforts. Water power is supplementing or re placing power from burning coal to an increasing extent every year. Even iron is so universal in nature that new metallurgical processes would make available unlimited quantities from minerals now regarded as worthless. Not so with petroleum. Human efforts can never replace the exhausted stores, neither is there any practical way of sup plementing its use by other substances, or of in creasing the available supply. Petroleum is doomed to disappear. Almost as soon as a new field is opened the search for its successor must begin. The supplies of to-morrow cannot be furnished from the fields of to-day. Not the present gener ation nor the one next to come is likely to see the supply fail, but both are sure to see changes such as the industry has never shown before. With a continuation of the present conditions no power on earth can avert the speedy exhaustion of the fields in this country. Standard Oil will be a thing of the past, and America will have to seek her oil in the countries where she long held undisputed sway in the oil trade, and where she has given so largely of her own abundant supplies.
The oil fields of to-morrow lie in the remote parts of the earth, where man has not yet pene trated in great numbers. They lie in the desolate wastes of Russian Turkestan and Siberia, in the unclaimed empire beyond the Rocky Mountains and in the Canadian Northwest, in the vast plains of our sister continent to the south, and in the heart of Africa. The enormous industry of to-day is but a little child beside the giant which must develop these fields of to-morrow, and spread their products to every fireside in the civilized world. Man must have light and the ends of the earth must yield up their whole store of hidden treasures to supply him.