It was my privilege at the end of 1917, thanks to the kindness of the British Foreign Office, to pay a visit to the fronts of France and Flanders, and there to have an opportunity of seeing the part which petroleum products did actually play. The immensity of this importance cannot be easily grasped, nor easily described. We all know the remarkable progress which had been made in regard to the extension of the railway systems throughout the zones of battle, but it will surprise many to learn that it was when the rail-heads had been reached, and between there and the real battle front, that motor spirit had the realm of transport to itself. Tens of thousands of heavy motor vehicles took up the work of transport when it left the railway, and it was this service that was required to see not only that our millions of men daily received their food, but each and every sort of ammunition also. But it was not even when the front line of battle was reached that motor spirit had finished its work. Those great machines of war--the tanks--had to remain stationary if they were not fed by large supplies of spirit, while petroleum, too, took a primary position in the making of the liquid fire which now and again we heard of as causing such havoc to Fritz. But, at its best, the railway was somewhat slow at the Front, no doubt owing to the enormous congestion which was inseparable from the reign of a state of war. Consequently, whole fleets of motor vehicles were employed day and night in a ceaseless stream of traffic, from the coastal ports right up to the zone of battle. Without divulging secrets, it is safe to say that that branch of the service alone demanded millions of gallons of motor spirit weekly. Both after as well as before battle, the products of petroleum were essential, for, when the Red Cross vehicles took up their humane work of transporting the wounded heroes of the fight, those, too, called for innumerable quantities of motor spirit. And when darkness had fallen the oil lamp came into general use. It was to be found wherever there was a vestige of life in those zones of battle: the soldiers in their, at times, lonely dug-outs, used oil for cooking as well as for light, and all vehicular traffic was guided from disaster along the roads by the use of oil, which also offered the only source of artificial light in the Red Cross vehicles. What an immense organization it was which depended for its ceaseless activities upon the products of petroleum!