Water washes everything, touches everything, impregnates
everything. Nothing escapes it. Incessantly, everywhere,
whatever it meets, is dissolved and finally deposited in the
immense common receptacle of the oceanic basins.
This constant washing continually modifies the chemical
composition of the earth’s surface, and it evidently does so
to the detriment of the soil’s fertility, since the substances
that make a soil fertile are just those that are soluble in
water. This general sterilization is masked by local advantages.
A valley like that of the Nile, for instance, benefits by the
substances brought down from regions nearer its source, but in
the long run rivers are always carrying to the sea an enormous
quantity of fertilizing material that is lost beyond recall.
(Text.)--PAUL COMBES, _Cosmos_ (Paris).
(3437)
* * * * *
Petroleum and natural gas, which are supplements to coal, are
subjected to wanton waste. Natural gas is now being wasted at
the rate of a billion cubic feet a day, by being blown into
the air. In Louisiana great spouting wells of gas are burning
in the open atmosphere, doing no good whatever to anybody. It
is estimated that there are thus consumed in that State alone
seventy million cubic feet per day, more than enough to supply
Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee,
and Pittsburg.
If the present rate of increase of exploitation of highgrade
iron-ore continues, the supply will not last more than fifty
years. In the not distant future it is certain that we shall be
obliged to turn to the lower grade ores, of which the quantity
is vastly greater, but the smelting of these ores will make a
much heavier draft upon our coal supply.
Like coal and iron, the output of copper and zinc has more
than doubled during recent decades, and the product of the
past ten years is greater than the entire previous history of
exploitation of these metals in this country.
Each year, not considering loss by fire, we are consuming three
and one-half times as much wood as is grown. It is estimated
that we allow twenty million acres of forest to be burned over
annually. Of the timber we take, from one-fourth to one-half
is lost by our wasteful methods of cutting and manufacture.
Already within a little more than a century of the life of this
nation approximately one-half of our forest products are gone.
Our system of taxation of forests encourages rapid cutting
rather than conservation. We must reform our tax laws concerning
forest products; we must eliminate forest fires; we must use
economically the wood cut; we must reduce the total amount
used per capita until the growth of one year is equal to the
consumption of that year.
Our water resources, including water for domestic purposes, for
irrigation, for navigation, for power, are enormous. As yet they
have been only very partially utilized. Fortunately, the water
continues in undiminished quantities, being ever withdrawn from
the ocean through the power of the sun, and ever falling upon
the land. It is a perpetual resource.--_Collier’s Weekly._
(3438)