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Pioneers in the oil-shale industry in the United States will not begin operations without precedents. This industry has been in operation in Scotland for a little more than seventy years.

There were beginnings years ago of what might have become an oil-shale industry in the United States, but it proved a case of arrested development until a few years ago. The story is recorded as follows:

The earliest record of oil shale investigation in America is that of Dr. Abram Gasner, who, in 1815, erected a small retort at Baltimore, New Brunswick, to treat the albertite shale of New Brunswick. In Boston, the Downer Oil Company from 1854 to 1861 treated albertite from New Brunswick and manufactured lamp oil and parrafin. About 1855 the Mormons distilled oil from shale. The ruins of an oil retort still remains at Juab, Utah, as evidence of their early knowledge of the character of the oil shale of that region. Between the years 1850 and 1860 more than fifty plants were erected in the eastern states and along the Atlantic Coast

to retort imported Boghead coal, by Young's process, and also local coals and shales. . . . When, however, in 1859 oil was produced from wells in abundant quantity, the distillation plants were compelled to close, but were later remodeled as refineries of well petroleum. . . . The supply of well oil was so abundant and so cheap that the production

of oil from shale became unnecessary. Nothing was, therefore, done for many years.

Then came a stretch of years, filled with the colorful history of oil booms and oil rushes, men made millionaires in the twinkling of an eye, and that strange mixture of the sordid and the romantic that always haunts areas of exploitation. Beginning about 1910 interest in our Western shale-beds was renewed. Men began to locate claims under the placer law. Soon thereafter our Government, realizing the rapid depletion of our oil resources, undertook to foster interest in and assemble information regarding our shale-beds. In 1913 the United States Geological Sur

vey sent a body of investigators into the field to examine the shale deposits of Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming in particular. This was the beginning of a work of investigation and research that has been kept up in field and laboratory since that time. From time to time the United States Geological Survey has published bulletins on the results of its investigations.

In doing this the Geological Survey effectively illustrated one of the high functions of a federal government, namely, to play the rôle of pioneer and experimenter, foreseeing the social and economic needs of the nation, and doing the necessary ground work of research in that important period before the incentive of immediate profit has begun to draw private investment and initiative into the field.

The work of the Geological Survey stimulated the interest of chemists, engineers, men of the well oil industry, with the result that private capital soon began the financing of experiments and investigations. Much of this work, as

Dr. Alderson points out, has been widely scattered, isolated, and frequently secret. It is to be regretted that in an industry so vital to the industrial future of the United States the Federal Government cannot conscript the results of all private investigations, so that the industry as a

whole can move forward with the maximum of informed intelligence.

It is difficult to write of this vital industry without seeming to cast the comment in the form of a stock prospectus. But this element of danger is removed by the fact that all responsible writers on the oil-shale industry go out of their way to emphasize the fact that it is not a "poor man's game." It is an industry that will require a large amount of capital and does not promise quick returns in this early stage of promotion. Wily promoters will before long be dangling oil-shale stock before our eyes. We have it upon the best authority that, if we are men of meager savings, we should look before we leap.

THE RUMFORD PRESS CONCORD

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HERCULES Explosives Chemicals Naval Stores

Testing the strength of Hercules Dynamite in Ballistic Mortar House

Vigilance That Begets Confidence

A spark, a sputtering fuse, a report-and the recoil of a mortar, which hangs as a great pendulum, registers the energy stored in Hercules Dynamite. This simple but accurate test is only one of many which are employed by the Hercules Powder Co. to maintain the unfailing high and uniform quality of Hercules Explosives. Before it is finally accepted as ready for commercial use a Hercules Explosive, no matter what its nature, must pass almost as many examinations as a boy about to graduate from high school. It is due to this unflagging vigilance on the part of the men who make them that the products of the Hercules Powder Co. occupy the enviable position they do in the fields of sport and industry.

Among hunters and trap shooters, miners and quarrymen, engineers and contractors, Hercules Explosives enjoy a firmly established reputation for unusually high and uniform quality. This is the reason why they are called upon to perform so much of the work which can only be carried on efficiently and economically by the use of explosives.

HERCULES POWDER CO.

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MARCH

Volume 101

THE CENTURY

CONTENTS

1921

No. 5

Articles and pictures are copyrighted and must not be reprinted without special permission

Soldiers and Sailors Monument,
New York City...

From a painting. Printed in color.

From "The Book of Jack London"

I. The Sailor on Foot and Rod

Confession. A story.

Illustrations by Robert E. Johnston

Is It Necessary to Get Ahead?

William Jean Beauley
Frontispiece

. Charmian London

Algernon Blackwood

545

556

Edwina Stanton Babcock

568

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Edward J. O'Brien

572

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St. John Ervine

573

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Joseph Anthony

582

Caroline Singer

590

Harry A. Franck

601

George C. Fraser

Facing page 608

James Boyd

609

Sadakichi Hartmann

619

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Loafing Down Long Island

I. On the Difficulties of Walking
Drawings by Thomas Fogarty

622 Charles Hanson Towne 623

When Labor-Unions Guarantee Production. William L. Chenery

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THE CENTURY MAGAZINE is published monthly at 35 cents a copy, or $4.00 a year in the United States, $4.60 in Canada, and $5.00 in all other countries (postage included).

Publication and circulation office, Concord, N. H. Editorial and advertising offices, 353 Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. Subscriptions may be forwarded to either of the above offices. Pacific Coast office, 327 Van Nuys Building, Los Angeles, California.

W. Morgan Shuster, President; Don M. Parker, Secretary; George L. Wheelock, Treasurer; James Abbott, Assistant Treasurer. Board of Trustees: George H. Hazen, Chairman; George Inness, Jr.; W. Morgan Shuster. The Century Co. and its editors receive manuscripts and art material, submitted for publication, only on the understanding that they shall not be responsible for loss or injury thereto while in their possession or in transit. Copies of manuscripts should be retained by the author.

All material herein published under copyright, 1921, by The Century Co. Title registered in the United States Patent Office. Entered as second-class matter August 18, 1920, at the United States post-office, Concord, N. H., under the act of March 3, 1879; entered also at the Post Office Department, Ottawa, Canada.

IN THE

APRIL CENTURY

PARTIAL TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Porch Swing

Five Fine Stories

KARLE WILSON BAKER Such a human, touching, lovable, racy, American sort of story! We have guessed that you will love its heroine and the old umbrella-mender who is its good genius.

The Fly

LEON FLEISCHMAN

He thought he was made for better things; he did not know exactly what or how-but if it had not been for his wife. . . . Here is the struggle of an ego which neither can, nor fully wishes to, escape its enslavement to comfort and to love.

Menena

W. DOUGLAS NEWTON Mass celebrated deep in a South American forest: a richly decorated altar, shrine and vessels. A scoundrel, a thief, among simple savages-and a girl.

Wolf's-Head and Eye-for-Bane

JAMES C. ANDREWS Extraordinary in at least two ways: a romantic phase of feudal life is treated realistically as a modern novel; and the people of the story live, awakening our anxiety and sympathy.

A Disciple

ALBERT KINROSS

The tragic idyl of a worshiper of Goethe, and his strange adventure in old Weimar.

Of Stone Walls: an Essay

ROBERT PALFREY UTTER

A delightful essay of the lighter sort, which will go straight to the hearts of New Englanders the world over.

A Book-Hunter's Garner

WILLIAM HARRIS ARNOLD Books in which Keats or Shelley read; a book which "Elia" inscribed to Barry Cornwall; "Vanity Fair,' dedication copy with author's autograph"; a book bearing the penciled comments of Coleridge and his apology for marking up a borrowed volumesurprises and happy accidents of book-hunting, described by an especially successful hunter.

Uruguay: A Progressive Republic

HARRY A. FRANCK

Mr. Franck sees this little-traveled country on his way northward.

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