1 68 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



permanent gain to the assets of the state, Chippendale sofas are. The 

 accumulation within the state of art treasures, that is to say of fine 

 work in fitting material is, therefore, a means of increasing the wealth 

 of the state. And schools and professional feeling which shall help the 

 workman to become the artisan, to put individuality into his work and 

 feel a pride in it, and money spent in the production and education of 

 men who serve mankind and whose footsteps will be gazed upon with 

 reverence by coming generations are directly helping the prosperity of 

 the commonwealth. In so far then as work of artistic value is ex- 

 pended upon material which is retained in the state, there is a definite 

 increase in the wealth of the state. 



As a second class we have the resources of which there is a con- 

 tinuous and transitory supply, in contrast to those of which there is a 

 stock, in the using of which we are drawing on an original supply or 

 the accumulation of generations. The farmer's windmill in using 

 wind power is using a resource of the former class, while the use of 

 coal is drawing on a reserve. 



Farm products so far as they are due to air, water, sunshine and 

 hard work, the minting of golden sunshine into golden grain, are a 

 development of resources continuously supplied, but there is also a little 

 ash or mineral matter which, if not replaced by manure or fertilizer, is 

 a draft upon the capital of the commonwealth. 



Most important perhaps of these resources is water power, which 

 is indeed largely used, but of which there are millions of horse power 

 yet unused. Any permanent substantial dams which may help us to 

 utilize this will be a permanent gain to the resources of the state. 



Third, are the resources which are wasting away in the use. As 

 we gaze on a piece of soft coal across the cleavage, we shall see dozens 

 of alternating bright and dull bands in an inch. Each of these may 

 represent an annual or semi-annual change of climate, and a ton of 

 coal may represent thirty tons of wood. Thus in using coal we are dis- 

 sipating in a few years the accumulations of generations heaped up 

 millions of years ago. 



Now of these reserve accumulations, and I can not emphasize the 

 fact too strongly, there is never an inexhaustible supply. People a 

 scant half century ago used to talk of the inexhaustible supplies of 

 pine in the Saginaw. There is now hardly a stick standing. Men 

 prate of inexhaustible mines. There are no inexhaustible mines. The 

 bottom of perhaps the greatest mine in the world, the Calumet and 

 Hecla, on its conglomerate is much too visible. The Spindletop bubble 

 has already burst, and its wealth has practically vanished, wasting what 

 should have been the industry of a generation in a scant decade. The 

 towns that had natural gas no longer burn it in flambeaux that burn 

 millions of cubic feet a day, but charge twenty cents a thousand for it. 

 Of course sometimes the supplies are in a way practically inexhaustible. 



