Natural gas is an adaptable agent. It may be used in anesthesia or in the cure of sleeping-sickness, in fueling or fighting fires, in blowing up cities or in dyeing cloth. Its first and perhaps most important use, however, is in supplying the pressure that forces crude oil from the bowels of the earth to the surface. When local gas pressure is exhausted, further working of an oil well is almost prohibitively expensive.
It was, therefore, natural that California, wishing to slow up oil production but unable to do so directly by law, should last...
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