Many readers of the Bulletin may be interested in Paul H. Giddens' The Birth of the Oil Industry. The story is concerned chiefly with the events which led to the establishment of the petroleum industry and with its first years as a successful industry, and it traces the rise, prosperity, and decline of one of the most extreme speculative booms the country has ever seen. Large fortunes were made — and lost — in a short time. But the important fact about the book is that it shows how a new industry was built and records the factors which went into its making.