125 feet wide, first-class county roads 75 to 100, and second-class 50 to 75. It recommends, too, ornamental planting along parts of the roads and the selection of good sites for public monuments.

On the whole, the report shows conclusively that London is now tackling her traffic problems, so far as conveyances go, with energy and good sense. Twenty-three main roads radiate from Greater London into the surrounding

country, including the Dover, the Brighton, the Bath, and the Great North roads. The scheme would provide means for making direct-approach roads into London, besides linking up the main routes, both old and new, with subsidiary ones. At the same time there is an official suggestion of a great circular road around London, a quarter of a mile in width and a ten-mile radius from Charing Cross, which would link up these radial roads.

A

NEW method of producing gasoline has been perfected with results that promise to increase greatly the supply of that indispensable fluid in this automobile age. The process involves the production of gasoline from natural gas. The list of valuable commodities that were discovered by accident is a long one and to it must be added this kind of gasoline, for the possibilities of natural gas in this direction were learned by chance.

Two or three years ago it began to be noticed that mysterious explosions occurred in ranges and stoves fed by natural gas, particularly in cold weather. It was conjectured

regular attendant on the lease had become ill suddenly and departed leaving a couple of high pressure wells flowing into the line. It in turn was cut off from the trunk line by a valve a mile further. The weather had been bitterly cold for a week. The gas line ran part of the way through a marsh, the water in which was frozen, so the line was incased in ice. Here then was gas confined under heavy pressure in a low temperature and these the experts saw were the only conditions nature required to turn out with great rapidity gasoline of a higher grade than is distilled off in the ordinary refining process.

Natural gas is known in oil country vernacular as "dry" gas and "casing head" gas. The first means gas from a well that produces no oil and it is this kind of natural gas that supplies fuel to hundreds of cities and towns. Nearly all oil wells produce gas in association with oil. Such of it as is necessary is used to operate gas engines for pumping or to furnish fuel for the boiler. The rest is allowed to escape through the casing heads of the wells. In some cases this waste is very large. As before intimated news travels fast in the oil country. Within two months after

ing turned into gasoline and money.

Several of the larger manufacturing companies that build machinery for the oil fields took up the subject. They devised apparatus to produce the low temperature, high pressure and confinement that nature demanded for her condensing process. In the first plants the gas was run from the well through a compressor which contributed the necessary pressure, into a coil of pipe in a tank of cold water where the other conditions were realized. That with a few frills was about all. The early plants have been improved on but the principle remains the same and so much simplicity has been introduced that an ordinary pumper can operate the ordinary plant in addition to his regular work.

These little gasoline plants are going up in all the oil fields. They involve the investment of a few thousand dollars only and for the most part are of the capacity of a few barrels of gasoline daily. But some are of pretentious size and more are being added to this list. In the Oklahoma field a few weeks ago a company heavily backed by wealthy men was formed to thus utilize waste gas and in the same field the special process man has made his

appearance. The characteristics of two wells on

the same farm are often entire

ly different. In fact there

is as much dissimilarity between oil and gas wells as there is between individuals and this makes

it necessary for a lease owner to have his gas

tested before putting in a gasoline plant because its content in gasoline may be less or more than that of gas produced from wells a comparatively short distance away. At the beginning of this industry just how to test a volatile invisible fluid on a farm without elaborate scientific apparatus was considerable of a problem. But the old text books of the preparatory schools provided the manufacturing companies a way to do it and they now send out directions to any lease owner telling him how to collect samples of gas for testing.

The operation is a simple one but very interesting. An empty quart bottle is secured and a piece of rubber tubing with a suitable reducing attachment to be fitted on the source of the gas to be tested. Then the bottle is filled with water and immersed neck downward in a pail of water. The rubber tubing is inserted in the neck of the bottle. Immediately the gas forces the water out of it. A cork is put in and, after dipping it in liquid paraffine, the bottle of gas is ready for shipment to a laboratory. Hundreds of bottles are received weekly in the testing rooms around Pittsburg

and the

chemists are able to tell exactly just what quantity of gasoline per thousand feet a particular gas will produce. It is found that dry gas

yields little or no gasoline but that casing head gas coming from oil saturated sands carries a content of from two to two and one-half gallons per thousand feet of gas. This means that a great many lease owners are garnering very handsome profits. The oil papers which perhaps of all trade papers follow their subject closest, report numerous little plants that bring the owners as high as $50.00 a day clear profit from a product that for years has been allowed to mix with the atmosphere.

The "gasoline scheme" as oil men call it has already advanced sufficiently to develop problems of transportation and storage. Of course, gasoline cannot be kept in the ordinary wooden tank. Nor will the customary iron tank hold the volatile fluid. A specially built steel tank is required. For shipment it has been found necessary to use steel drums. There is really no difficulty yet in finding quick markets for the demand for gasoline is worldwide and immense.

maintains, without danger of loss, the supremacy it assumed fifty years ago.

The prodigious production of oil has developed a peculiar condition in the market for oil products. There is practically no end to the consumption of the lubricating oils produced from petroleum and, as said, gasoline moves out as rapidly as it is made. These two products rep

resent the two extremes of crude oil, and the space between is made up of burning oils which, owing to the great production, have accumulated enormously. It is this fact which has enabled the Standard to attack successfully on their own ground the European manufacturers, for the latter cannot sell kerosene at the price made by the Standard. A vast proportion of American petroleum does not yield much gasoline. This is the fact as to the California oils and also as to the oil of the Gulf Coast. Every ounce of gasoline that the other oils can be made to yield is secured in the refining process.

Last year the production of oil in the United States reached the stupendous figures of 213,000,000 barrels-the largest in the history of the industry. This means that every day 600,000 barrels of that fluid came out of the ground. Though exact statistics are lacking it is known that the production of the Asiatic and Eastern European fields was also enormous although, of course, nothing like that of the United States, which

The manufacturing companies most concerned concede that transportation problems will increase as the business increases. But they believe these will solve themselves. They examine in their laboratories thousands of samples of gas from the different fields and express their belief that these are the early stages of an industry which bids fair to become second in importance to the production of crude petroleum.

Ꮤ

AERIAL

RAILWAY

E are fast approaching a time when all local obstacles having been removed, even the remotest places will have been brought within the reach of modern civilization. In fact, man in his struggle with natural drawbacks has long been intent on encircling the whole surface of the earth in a continuous network of railways and steamship lines, thus reducing distance to ever more subordinate importance. The last refuge left to lovers of solitude was on the snow-clad peaks of the Alps, which could be conquered only by the chosen few able to vanquish their terrors. However, the iron horse is now invading even these last ramparts of virgin nature, spreading everywhere on its way, the hustle of modern life.

It is true that from a less selfish point of view this triumph of human skill is to

be welcomed. Though the noisy products of civilization necessarily impair to some extent the beauty of Alpine scenery, it is doubtless a boon to humanity that common mortals should have been allowed their share in so many unknown treasures. Moreover, the very advance of engineering allows these means of conveyance to be designed on lines more and more in keeping with the majesty of Alpine scenery. The noisy steam engine with its clouds of smoke has already been superseded by silent and snug electric locomotives and the latest progress in this direction is the advent of suspended cableways, aerial railways as it were, which convey their passengers with the smoothness almost of air travel and hardly any earthly contact, up to the most giddy heights.

This novel means of conveyance, after a few short lines of minor importance, has been put to an interesting applica