494 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on imports, in respect to the article borax (borate of soda). Formerly 

 the world's supply of this mineral substance, which enters largely into 

 industrial processes and medicine, was limited, and mainly derived 

 from certain hot springs in Tuscany, Italy; but within a compara- 

 tively recent period it has been found that it exists in such abundance 

 in certain of the desert regions of California, Nevada, and Arizona, 

 that it can be gathered with the minimum of labor from the very 

 surface of the ground. Were a single acre of similar desert to be 

 found in any section of a country enjoying the most ordinary privi- 

 leges in respect to transportation and water supply, it would be a 

 source of wealth to its proprietor. But under existing circumstances, 

 although thousands and thousands of acres of this land can be bought 

 with certain title from its owner — the Federal Government — for 

 two dollars and twenty-five cents an acre, no one wants it at any 

 price; and the prospective demand for it has not yet been sufficient 

 to warrant the Government in instituting even a survey as a pre- 

 liminary to effecting a sale. In the Senate debate above alluded to 

 it was proposed to increase the duty on imported borax, with the ex- 

 pectation that a consequent increase in its domestic price would 

 afford sufficient profit to induce such construction of roads and such a 

 supply of water and labor on the borax tracts of the deserts as to 

 enable them to become property.* 



In the oases of the deserts of North Africa and Egypt the value 

 of a tract of land depends very little upon its size or location, but 

 almost exclusively upon the number of the date-bearing palms, the 

 result of labor, growing upon it, and the quality of their fruit. 

 John Bright on one occasion stated that if the land of Ireland were 

 stripped of the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occu- 

 pier, the face of the country would be " as bare and naked as an 

 American prairie." 



An exact parallel to this state of things is afforded in the case of 

 lands of no value reclaimed from the sea and made valuable, as has 

 been often done in England, Holland, and other countries, by em- 

 bodying labor upon them in the shape of restraining embankments 

 and the transportation and use of filling material. Again, the value 

 of springs or running streams of water is generally limited and of 

 little account. But when, through direct labor, or the results of labor, 

 the water is collected in reservoirs and made the instrumentality of 



* " Senator Paddock : I should like to ask the Senator from Nevada if, in the region of 

 country where borax is found, by reason of finding it the land in the particular State or 

 Territory is appreciated in value on account of its existence. 



" Senator Stewart : Not at all. 



"Senator Paddock: The value then given to it is all in labor." — Congressional Record, 

 July, 1890. 



