694 



CONSERVATION 



The water flowing to the sea goes back 

 to the land from the sea ; the soil never 

 does. The water, as it were, is the dev- 

 astating agent, the soil the victim. So 

 that as the continental plains are being 

 torn down the ocean beds are being 

 filled up. The water returns to the 

 soil, but the soil remains in the sea. 



One of the most important problems, 

 therefore, is to keep the thousand mil- 

 lion tons of annually eroded soil on 

 the land which needs it, 400,000,000 

 tons of which is being emptied into the 

 Gulf of Mexico every year through the 

 Mississippi River alone. When we re- 

 member how much of the top of the 

 superficial area of the North American 

 Continent the Mississippi has carried 

 to the Gulf of Mexico, and made a 

 layer approximately a quarter of a mile 

 deep, and laid it over an area of nearly 

 a hundred thousand square miles of the 

 Gulf coastal plain, we realize the im- 

 portance of stopping the soil erosion, 

 which has been increased rather than 

 diminished by the wasteful hand of 

 man. We must save those forests which 

 Nature has providentially planted along 

 the tens of thousands and hundreds of 

 thousands ' of miles of tributaries and 

 sub-tributaries, which the settler in his 

 recklessness has been cutting away ; we 

 must build great reservoirs in the hin- 

 terland where the eroded soil may be 

 deposited, where the water may be clar- 

 ified and shorn of much of its cutting 

 power, where the water which now 

 stands for freshet and disaster may be 

 held back until the river banks have 

 been bared by the drought ; and we 

 must turn these stored floods through 

 the irrigating ditches to fertilize the 

 desert, and over power wheels to make 

 the "wheels go round." 



Let it be remembered that it takes 

 10,000 years for Nature to make a 

 foot of soil, and that through our blun- 

 dering unintelligence we waste often in 

 ten years what it will take Nature a 

 thousand years to restore. 



We are told that the possible horse- 

 power in our streams is over 230,- 

 000,000, of which we use about two 

 per cent ; that there is enough of this 

 available, i. c, 37,000,000 hor.sepower. 



even now, as cheap or cheaper than 

 steam installation, to exceed the entire 

 mechanical power in use in the United 

 States and to "operate every mill, drive 

 every spindle, propel every train and 

 boat, and light every city, town, and 

 village in the country. And there are 

 over four times this much horsepower 

 running to waste over the Federal Gov- 

 ernment dams alone." 



Mr. M. O. Leightou, chief hydrog- 

 rapher of the United States Geolog- 

 ical Survey, says : "Our inland waters 

 are our greatest national resource. The 

 water flowing down our western moun- 

 tains far exceeds in value the fabulous 

 wealth represented by all the metals 

 and minerals lying between the Rockies 

 and the Pacific. 



"To-day most of this resource is 

 wasted. Each year at least 1,600,000 

 horsepower runs over Federal Govern- 

 ment dams. Rented at $20 per horse- 

 power, this would yield $32,000,000. 

 Capitalized at three per cent, it rep- 

 resents an investment of $1,066,000,000 

 now wholly wasted." 



And yet, with an unintelligent and 

 incredible parsimony, we refuse the 

 initial investment which would utilize 

 a large portion of the ninety-eight per 

 cent of waste water-power, while we 

 are using up our coal and gas and oil 

 as if they would last forever. 



Out of the 215 trillion cubic feet of 

 water annually raised by the sun and 

 available for human uses, it has been 

 seen that ninety per cent of the avail- 

 able dynamic power in foot-tons of the 

 seventy trillion of cubic feet are not 

 onlv wasted, so far as economic power 

 and use are concerned, but are each year 

 becoming a monster of destruction more 

 ungovernable. The question of water- 

 supply and conservation and use instead 

 of avoidable disaster, becomes one, 

 therefore, of vital moment for the en- 

 tire Nation. It requires the immediate 

 and intelligent and sustained attention 

 of the legislative and executive depart- 

 ments of the country, as well as that of 

 the whole people, who must decide at 

 once between the patriot and the land- 

 skinner. This is a subject that cannot 

 even be approached from the point of 



