So insistent and overwhelming has grown the demand for petrol that the producers are hard put to it to keep pace with the requirements. A petroleum boom has reverberated around the world, eclipsing in intensity any stampede identified with the search for gold. To these islands the petroleum age has contributed very little wealth, although it has been responsible for revived interest in the exploitation of our shale--another form of waste--but to Russia, the United States of America, Mexico, and the East, where the earth reeks with petroleum, it has brought wealth untold. It has completely transformed the economic outlook of certain nations, and in some instances has served to rescue a country from bankruptcy. To us it is of appreciable significance because, so far, we have been compelled to draw upon distant sources for our requirements and so have to contribute to the national wealth of others, some of whom are our most spirited rivals in trade. In 1913 our imports of petroleum products aggregated 488,106,963 gallons, valued at £10,856,806--$54,284,030--the contribution from Greater Britain being 22,172,701 gallons, valued at £829,868--$4,149,340. Of this enormous volume 100,858,017 gallons represented petrol for our motors--the waste product of forty years ago at the refineries--for which we had to pay £3,803,397--$19,016,985. In the year when mechanical road propulsion was ushered in petrol could be obtained for about 4d.--8 cents--a gallon: in 1918 it commanded 3s. 6d.--84 cents--a gallon. An increase of over 900 per cent. in value within approximately 35 years represents no mean achievement in commercial expansion, but when it relates to an erstwhile waste product the record is far more sensational. To relate all the fortunes which have been amassed from the commercialization of what was once rejected and valueless would require a volume. Yet it is a story of fascinating romance and one difficult to parallel in the whole realm of human activity. It was the waste energy of water which laid the foundations of Lord Armstrong’s fortune and the enormous fabric of the huge firm on Tyneside. Sir Hiram Maxim revolutionized warfare by harnessing the wasted kick or recoil to reload and fire his machine-gun, thereby introducing one of the most formidable small arms ever devised to conduct the gentle art of killing. Lord Masham established a new industry and became a millionaire by taking the “chassum” or silk waste--a refuse which had even suffered rejection as a manure because it took such a long time to rot--and utilizing it as a raw material for the production of a new and wonderful range of beautiful fabrics in velvet and plush. It was another textile wizard, Sir Titus Salt, who perfected the process for turning the wool sheared from the back of a member of the camel family roaming the heights of the Andes, and which was classed as sheer rubbish, into the soft glossy fabric known as alpaca.