McKee Ralph H. (ed.) Shale Oil

New York: The Chemical Catalog Company, 1925. — 326 p. — (American Chemical Society Monograph Series).Civilization and the progress of man have always depended upon the production of heat and energy. Before man there was no knowledge of the uses of heat and indeed it is only in the latter periods of man’s evolution that such uses began to be developed. To the development and uses of the fuel resources of the world we owe our present civilization and, directly or indirectly, practically every useful work known to man. The most concentrated and the most easily used fuels have been those most sought for and most used. The discovery of a new and more concentrated fuel has been followed each time by a notable in- crease in the number and importance of devices for the conversion of heat into other forms of energy valuable to industry and life. This volume has been written because petroleum has achieved such great importance as a concentrated fuel in American industrial life and because oil from oil shale promises in the immediate future to supple- ment the supplies of well petroleum, and, in the more distant future, when the supply of well petroleum gradually fails, to furnish the bulk of the oil needed. In this volume we have attempted to bring together such information as will give the reader a true and correct view of the shale oil situation and, even more impotent, to furnish to the worker in this field a knowledge of what has been recorded in the printed word relative to shale oil. With this last in view the abstracts of articles relating to shale oil have been made quite full and so far as possible none of importance has been omitted. It would te too much to hope that we have been successful in this effort and accordingly we would be pleased to be notified of any important published articles in this field which have been overlooked.