i9o8 WASTE OF NATURAL RESOURCES 267 



is organized to further legislation equal flow and a required depth for 

 whereby the large area of swamp land navigation, and furnishing an assured 

 in the United States may be drained supply for power plants, municipal 

 and reclaimed under the supervision purposes and irrigation, as well as 

 of the Reclamation Service. The aver- preventing floods and droughts. 

 age cost of draining the swamp lands There is an enormous and danger- 

 is $5 an acre ; and the 80,000,000 ous waste in the using of our mineral 

 acres of these lands, in the various fuel resources. 



States from Maine to California, if For instance, the railroads annually 



drained, would furnish homes of 100 burn 150,000,000 tons of coal, of which 



acres each for 800,000 families, or only 5 per cent of the potential power 



some 4,000,000 people ; or farms of residing in the coal is actually used ; 



20 acres each for 4,000,000 families, the other 95 per cent, being lost by 



making 20,000,000 people. wasteful mechanical methods. In the 



In appointing the Inland Water- best incandescent electric lighting 

 ways Commission, the President plants one one-fifth of i per cent of 

 planned for a comprehensive study of the potential power in the coal can, 

 the vast inland chain of rivers and under our present methods, be con- 

 lakes, with a view of developing and verted into light. 



utilizing these great waterways, thus If the rate of consumption of coal 

 opening the channels of trade and ex- continues to increase hereafter as it 

 tending cpmmerce in some forty of has increased in the last ninety years, 

 our richest and most prosperous and there is reason to believe that it 

 States. A fourteen foot channel, as will do so, the anthracite coal will last 

 proposed, from the Gulf to the Great about fifty years, and the bituminous 

 Lakes, would relieve the railway con- coal a little over 100 years, 

 gestion, by taking over the bulky and The consumption of coal by dec- 

 non-perishable commodities of freight, ades is as follows : 

 and open the way for the fullest utili- short tons 

 zation of the benefits of the Panama i8i6toi8^ci "^"^i t,^6 

 ^^"^^- , , , . , ,, , 1826 to 1835 4,i68',i49 



We speak of the mmeral wealth of jg ^to 1845 23,177,637 



the West^ But the gold the _ silver, 1846 to 1 8s 5 83,417,825 



and all the products of the mmes m ^§56 to 1865 173,795,014 



the Rocky Mountams do not. equal m 1866 to i87S 4.IQ d2K 104 



value the waters flowing from those ^g ^ ^^ ^gg ;;;;';;;:;:: 847!76o!3i9 



mountams, and practically^all unused, ^gg^ to 1895 1,^86,098.641 



Runmng to waste over Government ^g ^ ^o 1905 2,832,599,452 



dams, year after year, are 1,600,000 



horse power, one of our greatest Na- As shown by the above figures the 



tional assets. amount consumed in any one decade 



Not being controlled, the water is is equal .to the entire previous con- 

 free to come down in the wet seasons sumption. This rate, if continued, 

 in floods. The damage from floods in means an increased consumption that 

 the country is over a hundred million no supply, however great, can with- 

 dollars a year. We shall have reached stand for many years. 

 the ideal condition when we manage The total tonnage of coal in the 

 and control our rivers and streams as a United States, exclusive of Alaska, is 

 city manages its water mains and hy- 200 billion tons. This amount of coal 

 drants; when, at the head- waters of would form a cube seven and a half 

 our navigable streams are reservoirs of miles high, seven and. a half miles 

 sufficient capacity to hold all the wa- long, and seven and a half miles broad ; 

 ters of the severest floods, so that we or it would form a layer of coal six 

 can shut oflf or let on at will any vol- and a half feet thick over the entire 

 ume of water, thus maintaining an area of the coal fields of the United 



