MICHIGAN ACADEMY OP SCIENCE. 17 



NATURAL RESOURCES, THEIR CONkSUMPTION AND CONSERV- 

 ATION. 



A. C. LANE. 



In these days of evolutionary theories and dominance of biology it 

 has become fashionable to apply the analogies and language of biology 

 in other fields, — for the geographer to speak of mature rivers, and 

 youthful drainage; and the sociologist and historian to speak of society 

 and nations as organisms. So, without going so far as to assume that 

 there are units of consciousness apart from brains, and that there is an 

 American or Michigan consciousness (standing in somevi^hat the same 

 relation to your consciousness and nij- consciousness as ours, it may be 

 supposed, to the sensitiveness which may belong to each individual cell 

 of our body), we may still accept the comparison of the nation or state 

 to that of an organism so far as it may help us to remember and 

 collate real facts. 



The youth of a people is in reality like that of a man, full of hope, 

 extravagant, feeling boundless resources, and inclined recklessly to squan- 

 der them in attaining the objects of desire. If it is wisely guided age may 

 bring mature judgment, more careful and conservative expenditure, and 

 riches which are not merely in prospect but in possession, which are 

 the fruits of useful industry and the relics and mementoes of a noble an- 

 cestry. Unwisely guided, age may bring the exhaustion of the resources 

 thought to be boundless, with nothing worth while to show for them; 

 and as the individual man may be found bankrupt in purse and pride, 

 so the nation or community may suddenly find its supposedly inex- 

 haustible supplies exhausted, the fabulous fertility of its fields failing, 

 its hills once clad in forests naked and seamed and gashed by gullies 

 until they remind one of the beggar's clothes whose spendthrift habits 

 have dragged him down to like depths of destitution. 



MilP says that "looking on the world as not only the home of man, but 

 as subservient in all its phenomena to the welfare of the human race, we 

 may consider the development of any region to mean such treatment of 

 its natural resources as will enable the land to continue to support an 

 increasing number of inhabitants," and ventures the suggestion that "for- 

 tune hunting is inimical to development in its true sense. A fortune 

 acquired through production or speculation can usually be made by only 

 a few individuals and almost always entails the exhaustion of natural 

 resources or the lowering of wages ; a prosperous livelihood, on the other 

 hand, can often be secured to a multitude without permanent impoverish- 

 ment of the land." 



The former statement we nmy consider a very fair definition of develop- 

 ment of a country. The latter is one of those general statements which 

 are hard to disprove, being both vague and qualified. But it suggests 

 that there may be such a thing as improper development. Much talk and 



1 Hugh R. Mill, New Lands, p. 7. 

 3 



