In his report Commander Barstow said that "during the past year the Allied governments' requirements amounted to 2,900,000,000 gallons, of which large total the United States has furnished 80 per cent, or about 2,320,000,000 gallons." The fact that eighty per cent. of the oil required had to be transported across the Atlantic shows the importance of the pipe line across Scotland which our Navy had a large part in constructing, and equally proves the value of the patrol of the Caribbean and Gulf Coast by our squadron in those waters. In March, 1913, in answer to a letter from the Navy Department as to whether the Navy would be justified in constructing all its ships as oil burners, the Secretary of the Interior advised that the Geological Survey's estimates of the available source of oil showed that it was ample. The policy of "all oil-burners" was adopted by the Navy in 1913 and, when it was organized, the Shipping Board adopted the same policy. It was found that four ships burning oil will do the work of five ships burning coal. From the coal mine to the fireroom the use of oil saves fifty men per ship. Oil is the super-fuel. It does effectively and economically all that coal can do, and more. Its use makes possible the highest service of the two hundred and seventy-five destroyers built or contracted for during the war. Foreseeing the larger use of oil for naval purposes, in the latter part of 1912, President Taft withdrew certain lands in California from public exploitation and set this land aside as Naval Reserves, No. 1 and No. 2. On April 30, 1915, President Wilson issued an order setting aside Naval Petroleum Reserve No. 3, in Wyoming. The preservation of these reserves intact for naval use is of such importance that the Government has fought the many adverse claims and refused the persistent applications of claimants and others to open wells on these reserves. It will soon be recognized that the nation which controls the oil supply of the world has an advantage in naval operations and in the carrying of water-borne commerce which will give it supremacy. The Navy Department appreciated this fact in 1913. After the war it recommended that this Government take steps not only to keep a large reserve of American oil stored in the ground but also to acquire wells in every part of the world where oil is produced. The contest for oil is a contest for supremacy of the sea traffic and naval superiority. Naval need of oil and the need for a large merchant marine, demand that the United States Government shall adopt a new policy touching oil and other national resources. We have been so wasteful of resources as to endanger national strength. It required the World War to teach us the importance of large production of oil, and of tankers and storage in all parts of the world. CHAPTER XXVII EDISON--AND 100,000 MORE