Abstract
MR. H. C. FOWLER in his paper on “Petroleum and Natural Gas Studies of the United States Bureau of Mines” (Information Circular 6737, July 1933) gives an important resume of the work of the petroleum and natural gas division of the U.S. Bureau of Mines. The chief motive of the Bureau is to collect and correlate the best available knowledge and information regarding physical phenomena, and thereafter make analyses of the data received with the view of delineating laws and fundamental relationships having practical application to problems of economic production, transportation and manufacture of gas and oil. During recent years, with the rapid growth of the industry, innumerable complex problems have arisen and in consequence the scope of the Bureau's work has changed and enlarged materially since its inception in 1914. The technique of practical oil and gas production is now more generally known and the Bureau is, therefore, able to concentrate on studies of a fundamental nature and on problems incapable of solution by individual concerns. Technical problems now confronting the Bureau concern refining; production of gas and oil, including related problems of pipe-line transportation of natural gas; engineering field studies; and special engineering problems, including technical research for information sought by the industry. The chief value of the Bureau's work, however, lies not in the multiplicity of problems under investigation but in the fact that all published information is definitely based on results of commercially independent experimentation and investigation. No statistics or data are published without being first subjected to rigorous scrutiny within the Bureau, and frequently such information is critically reviewed by recognised national authorities in the industry before release. Finally, the Bureau places its detailed and valuable findings without reservation at the disposal of a world-wide technical public, long since mindful of its obligation to a most efficient and learned body.
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The Bureau of Mines and the U.S. Petroleum Industry. Nature 132, 541 (1933). https://doi.org/10.1038/132541c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/132541c0