hydrostatic pressure tests. And after the water came the oil of the Arabian fields.

Construction had been so timed that the line could start operating at a moderate flow with two of the main six pumping stations at work. Output increased as other pumps were added, pushing the oil into the great hill tanks at Sidon. From those tanks the oil flows out a mile by submarine pipe line to the tankers waiting to take it to the western markets which depend so heavily on petroleum for both prosperity and peace.

The immensity of the operation can be understood when it is realized that it takes 4.9 million barrels of oil just to fill the Arabian line. Before one barrel can be drawn off at Sidon it is necessary to pump in that amount of oil. The first batch was pumped in at the eastern end oil July 18, 1950, as Aramco could supply it while meeting its other requirements.

But just filling the pipe wasn't enough to insure steady operation. In addition there had to be working stocks of approximately a million barrels at the western end and other working stock at intermediate pumping stations.

All in all some 6 million barrels of oil must be in the pipe and pipeline tanks at all times just to keep the operation moving. And that is more than all the oil pumped daily from all the wells in the United States.

Because of Tapline's great project, the whole way of life is going to change for hundreds of thousands of people. The scenes of mankind's earliest civilization were in the Middle East. Within that region lay the Garden of Eden, the ancient cities of Ur, Nineveh and Babylon, and

Tank farm control manifold at Sidon Terminal

Scraper trap at Mile 1068, Sidon