For miles one could see the flaring sky and one expected to come upon the wells at the crest of each hill, yet ever there seemed to be another hill between us and the lighted sky. Finally, at a bend in the road, we came upon the full glory of it. Great flares 10 or 12 feet high rising from standards, where they have burned day and night for years. This being the method of disposing of the superfluous gases, which might so easily be put to a useful purpose. But with the wild scramble to make money out of the liquid “black gold” no one has time to think of utility or waste, or even of organization. There is no fraternity in “the fields,” no sense of comradeship, no co-operation, no idea of spending anything on the bit of land that has given so much. There prevails one idea, and that of making as much gold as possible in the shortest space of time, and getting away with it. These hillsides in the dusk with their silhouettes of drilling towers, of palm trees and grass thatched bamboo huts, added to which the sickly smell of oil, have furnished palaces to men who once had nothing and diamond crowns to women, and given them the power of kings and queens. The mud and chaos, the breathless energy and human striving, have enriched men and women beyond all dream. But today, the world being saturated in the blood of bankrupting war, the demand for oil has enormously subsided, nor can the price be paid. The golden liquid has sunk temporarily to an eighth of its value of eight months ago. Nevertheless there is no respite in the oil fields. The oil can be stored, the oil producers can afford to wait. So new towers grow up, new holes are bored. Down into the bowels of the earth 1800 feet below sea level the great metal shaft is drilled with the full force of its 4,000 pounds weight until it bores through into the illusive river of oil that flows way down. Albeit in the harbor a few ships only await its flow to carry it to the four corners of the earth, the oil is being caught and caged, forced, heated, pumped and rushed along as before. In fact, more pipe lines and more giant tanks are being hurriedly built, so that the oil can wait in store until the markets of the world have recovered. So they hurry, hurry, bore and build and store, for the “day” of oil will come again as surely as the sun rises over the mountains. Has not Lloyd George said what he will do to the British coal miners now on strike, when he has accumulated and organized oil for fuel as a coal substitute? The world needs oil, will always need oil, will need more and more oil, oil crude and oil refined. So get it, keep it, hold it,--hurry....