26 DECEMBER 1914, Page 25

The oa Conquest of the World, by F. A. Talbot

(W. Heine- mann, 6s. net), describes the numerous uses to which petroleum and its derivatives have been put since oil was first "struck" in Pennsylvania in 1859 by Colonel Drake, who seems to have

been satisfied with the glory of his discovery, and did not become an "oil king." The present consumption of mineral oil is over twenty thousand million gallons annually, of which nearly half comes from the United States.