Seek to Recover
Oil Now Wasted
*--------------------------- —-----------------------------
Bureau of Mines Survey in Cali
fornia Shows 2,359,100
Barrels Could Be Saved.
WOULD BE WORTH $3,500,000
One Company Says Loss Between Wall
and Storage Tank la 40,000 Barrala
Monthly—Oil
Lost
In Seepage
Along tha Ditches.
mitced to flow “wild” until the gas
pressure diminishes enough to enable
controlling the well. This may re
quire days or even months, says Mr.
Elliott. There being no commercial
use for this oil-saturated sand, it Is
removed from the immediate vicinity
of the well or otherwise disposed of as
valueless.
Throughout many of the oil districts
of California, particularly in the San
Joaquin valley, a noticeable feature Is
the large cone-shaped mounds near
each of the wells where sand is pro
duced with the oil.
Sand Rises With Oil.
In wells where the sand is loose and
fine-grained and agitated by a high
gas pressure, naturally a greater
amount rises to the surface with the
oil. In the Sunset field, wells with
high gas pressure have produced mure
than 5,100 tons of sand in two to four
years, representing nearly two-thlrds
of their gross production. In the
Midway field there Is a well producing
about 500 tons a month and wells near
it with an output nearly as large. In
the Kerne River and West Side Coal
ings fields the oil is of heavy gravity
and, with the aid of an agitator such
as air, large amounts of sand are lift
ed to the surface. Each well yields
ten to twenty-five barrels of oil daily;
the proportion of sand carried with It
varies between 20 and 60 per cent, and
probably averages 40 per cent of the
gross production. The amount of sand
per well, because of the small oil pro
duction, Is small, but owing to the
great number of wells In these dis
tricts the aggregate amount is large.
Where wells produce only a small
amount of sand the so-called sand
boxes are frequently used. The sand
box is a long, narrow, open trough
closed at the ends and fitted with
baffles running crosswise to the flow.
The oil flows slowly over the sharp
baffles, the sand and emulsion settle
Washington.—The great demand for
petroleum, resulting chiefly from the
Increase of oil-burning devices and
and motor-driven vehicles, forces pro
ducers to take advantage of every
opportunity to Increase its production
by seeking new sources of supply,
and, what is more important, to use
new methods for saving more of the
oil brought to the surface than has
been retained heretofore. As in other
kinds of mining, it is thought possible
that a large additional recovery can
be obtained at a profit by working
over the wastes in certain fields and
by using more economical methods of
production in the future, says A. K.
Elliott, assistant petroleum engineer,
bureau of mines.
A survey of the oil districts of Cali
fornia was made by the bureau in
order to ascertain whether the visible
masses of wasted oll-bearing sands
would be a profitable source of supply.
From the data collected it Is estimated
that 2,359,100 barrels of oil valued at
more than $3,500,000, could be ob
tained from the sandpiles about pro
ducing wells and from the outcrop
pings In the vicinity of the fields. Also,
many times that amount of oil scat
tered over nearly the total oil-produc
ing area might be recovered from
seepage.
Wasted Through Seepage.
A paper issued by the bureau of
mines in 1914 said: “It is probable
that 10 or 15 per cent of the total
gross production of the state has been
wasted through seepage or evapora
tion.” This represents a loss of 15,-
000,000 barrels of oil yearly. Probably
one-quarter to one-half of this amount
seeps into the ground.
As a possible means of recovering a
large amount of oil from these wastes,
the following should be considered, United States Has Surprising
says Mr. Elliott: (1) Recovering oil
Number of Illiterates, Say Con
left in the sand that it produced with
gressional Investigators.
the oil; (2) reclaiming the oil that
seeps into the ground through waste
In production; and (3) mining and
treating the material In oil-bearing
outcrops and asphalt beds that occur
in certain sections of the state.
In the early days of a productive Millions of Immigrants In Country Can
field, the rush of gas into a new well
Neither Speak Nor Read English—
frequently sucks oil and sand with it
Committee Finds American
in large quantities. Oftentimes ade
Teachers Are Incompetent
quate means of holding in the well
are not available, and the oil is per-
Washington, D. C.—The United
States of America is one of the hard
est places in the civilized world In
which to get a good education, in the
Long Chain of Family
opinion of a committee of the house
Grandmothers Broken
which has been Investigating the ques
tion.
Arkadelphia, Ark.—A chain of
A fourth of the men of fighting age
grandmothers without parallel,
In the United States are Illiterates,
in this section, at least, has been
many children never get adequate
broken by the passing of Mrs.
schooling, many of the teachers are in
Emellne Eliza Riles, 82.
competent. There are millions of Im
Before her death, two small
migrants In the country who can nei
children of Mrs. Eliza Hanson,
ther speak nor read English, and many
her great-granddaughter, hnd
negro children never see the Inside of
six living grandmothers of whom
a schoolroom. Thousands of schools
two
were
great-great-grand
are closed because no teacher can be
mothers, two were great-grand
obtained for the miserable salaries of
mothers and two were just plain
fered.
grandmothers. The oldest of the
This disturbing picture of educa
Hanson children is 3% years of
tion In America is contained in the
age. Thus there were at one
report of the house committee on edu
time five living generations with
cation on the Towner bill, and abun
less than seventy-two years
dant proof of Its truth is contained in
separating the youngest from the
the hearings which were held in con
eldest.
nection with the bill.
The Hnnson children hnd be
This report is surely one of the
side their six grandmothers,
most startling Indictments of our civ
nine uncles, four great uncles,
ilization which has ever issued from
two great-great uncles, four
Capitol hill.
great aunts, two great-great
Facts Which Convinced Them.
aunts and forty second cousins,
Here, briefly, are some of the facts
but no first cousins.
which brought the congressmen to this
frame of mind:
Mr. Harding’s Selections for His Cabinet
to the bottom of the box and are shov
eled out as often as necessary.
Also in the districts that produce
heavy gravity olla, a convenient way
of separating the sand and oil is to
permit the oil to flow through long
open ditches to reservoirs, where the
free oil is removed by a suction pump.
Evidently, great quantities of oil can
be wasted through seepage along the
ditches and around the’ reservoir. If
soma accurate method could be used to
compure the amount of oil as it came
from the well with the amount actually
recovered, the difference would be sur
prisingly large. It Is reported that the
loss between the well and the field
storage tank of one large producing
company is approximately 40,000 bar-
reis a month. Other companies report
a proportionate amount.
. =- --- =
Works of Art, Stolen by
German Army, Reappear
os.
Saette.
fey
I
fa GiY * -
Anev xrazzor
Gai
London.—Numerous works of
art, heirlooms and jewels stolen
during the war by the Germans
in occupied territory are gradu
ally coming to light and in many
cases finding their way back to
their owners.
The Rumanian
papers publish the story of a
cache of stolen works of art
which the police have found in
the Transylvania home of the
father of a onetime Hungarian
officer.
Ninety-two well known paint-
Ings, eight vases and two onyx
clocks were found at the home
of a mine manager, who said
they had been given him by his
son on his return from the war.
The son was an officer in the
Hungarian artillery, and had
fought on the Cambrai front.
The objets d’art were found
to have been taken from the
chateau of the Prince de Chi-
may, near Cambrai, and were
returned to their owner. Some
of the pictures, Including works
of Joseph Berger, Millet and
Van der Heist had been hacked
out of their frames and badly
damaged.
(
' 4,
‘x* ■ J
. 4
Is Hard Place to
Get an Education
----
*---------
PAINT DISTURBING PICTURE
According to the census of 1910,
there were in this country 5,500,000
persons ten years of age or older who
could not read or write, and the com
mittee does not believe that conditions
have Improved since then. In addition
to these, there were 3,500,000 persons
who could not read or write English,
making a total of 9,000,000 in the land
of the free who were no more qualifled
to exercise the right of the franchise
than so many Australian bushmen.
The surgeon general’s report showed
that of the men called to service be
tween the ages of twenty-one and thir
ty-one, nearly 25 per cent were practi
cally illiterate.
This means that a
fourth of the young manhood of the
country, which Is its main reliance in
peace and in war, is to all intents and
purposes in a state of barbarism. For
mer Secretary of the Interior Lane es
timates that the annual cost of illit
eracy to the United States is $325,500,-
000.
The director of the bureau of
mines states that If all of the miners
could read and speak English a thou
sand lives a year would be saved.
The committee emphatically refutes
the Idea that illiteracy is confined to
the South, and to out-of-the-way sec-
tions.
It shows that while Georgia
has 83,000 illiterates. New York has
460,000, and that Pennsylvania has
more of them than Alabama. Neither
does the idea hold good that the il
literates are chiefly negroes. There
are a million more white illiterates
than colored.
Of the 15,000,000 foreign-born in the
United States, the committee says that
5,000,000 cannot read or write English,
and that 2,000,000 cannot read or write
any language.
Luck Decides Education.
The committee says that getlng an
education In the United States Is
largely a matter of luck, that the op
portunity is not equal.
“In the South a large number of the
negro children never see the Inside of
a schoolhouse,” it asserts.
“In the
North there Is hardly a city that has
adequate school facilities for all its
children.”
The committee finds that In physical
education our schools have failed
even worse than In mental educa
tion.
The “provost marshal general's re
port revealed the startling fact that
more than one-third of the men ex
amined for military service in the late
1**00* wss
war were disqualified by reason of
** ‘
physical disability,” It reports. “It also
e mi
stated that 90 per cent of these young
men could have qualified had they been
taught the simplest rules of hygiene
and health.
It was Ignorance, groas
ignorance, that In the vast majority
of cases was the cause of their Incom
petence."
The committee finds that American
teachers are utterly incompetent, that
100,000 of them are less than 20 years
old, that 30.000 of them have no edu
cation beyond the eighth grade, that
200,000 of them have less than a high
school education, and that 300,000 of
them have no professional training
Knoxville. Pa., a miner's colony on the outskirts of Pittsburgh, is a town whatever. It finds that the average
built along the Une of the least resistance, the houses being built In rows to salary paid teachers In this country
follow the course of the bill. There are about one thousand houses la the la less than the wages paid scrub wom
group, all of one design. This photograph of the “winding town" was made en or ditch diggers. ’’—Frederic J. Has-
kin in Chicago Daily News.
from a near by hill.
CENTER OF POPULATION
Lieut. Coney, Cross-Country Flier
OF
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147
CENSUS
1921
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ERECTED BY
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WORLD COURIER
JULY 207911
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"Photo #
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-Air
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This is Lieut. W. D. Coney standing beside the army air service plane in
which he started from San Diego, Cal., in the attempt to fly to Pablo Beach,
Fla., with only one stop. Engine trouble forced him to land at Bronte, Tex.
Smallest Park in the World
Town That Follows Nature’s Path
Less than 300 yards west of the
Monroe county line. In Owen county,
Indiana, the center of the population
of the United States under the 1920
census has been located on John E.
Herron’s farm of 60 acres. Mrs. Hor-
ron is shown standing beside the
board marking the center.
OLDEST OF AVIATORS
agi 4r.
-
What Is said to be the smallest park in the world is located at the top
of the famed Winter hill at Somerville. Mass. It is known as Paul Revere
park. The tiny site set aside by the city is in the form of a triangle, two
sidee of which are 80 feet, and rhe other 20 feet long. This makes the area
of the plot 300 square feet. The old road over which Paul Revere dashed on
his famous midnight ride, runs along one side of the park.
Charles Dickinson. a retired million
aire of Chicago, and president of the
Illinois Aero club, made bls first solo
flight in an airplane the other day.
Mr. Dickinson, who Is sixty-three, has
made several air flights.