MEXICO.--The oil-fields of Mexico can claim to have leapt into prominence at a far more rapid rate than any other oil-field of importance in the world. Their development has been phenomenal, and from being practically unknown sixteen years ago, they now rank as the third largest producing regions, coming but next to the United States and Russia. My object in dealing with the Mexican fields prior to referring to the Russian petroleum industry is that they may be said to form an integral part of the fields of the New Continent, and, from many points of view, are linked up with the petroleum industry of the United States. Indeed, there are several authorities who are now urging that it is to Mexico that the United States Government must look if it is to be in a position to furnish the major portion of the petroleum products required for the markets of the world. Another reason for my dealing with Mexico at the moment is that, when development operations are carried a little further, and when ocean transport facilities are available for adequately dealing with the flood of Mexican petroleum, there is not the slightest doubt that Mexico will rank as the second largest country of petroleum production. Its annual output of crude oil is, approximately, 8,000,000 tons, but even this figure in no way represents the productivity of its prolific oil-producing regions, for according to the official statement of the Mexican Government the production in 1918 represented only 10 per cent. of that possible. The Mexican wells have no parallel in the world, large as have been some of the oil-fountains in Russia.