A WORK ON THE COiNSERVATION 

 OF WATER BY STORAGE 



By George Fillmore Swain, LL. D. 



Reviewed by Henry Sturgis Drinker, 

 President of Lehigh University and President of the American Forestry Association- 



THE CONSERVATION OF WATER BY STORAGE, by George Fillmore Swain, LL. D., 

 Gordon McKay Professor of Civil Engineering in Harvard University; Past President Amer- 

 ican Society of^ Civil Engineers; Yale University Press, New Haven, Connecticut, 384pp. 

 price, $3.00 



THIS very vahtable work is made troys the store available for future 

 up of a collection of studies generations. Such are coal, oil, gas, 

 fitting one into another, so as phosphates, and other mineral deposits, 

 to present a harmonious whole. Every particle of these resources which 

 being addresses delivered in the Chester is utilized diminishes by so much what 

 S. Lyman Lecture Series, in 1914, is left for our successors, 

 before the Senior Class of the Sheftield 2. "Those resources which are self- 

 Scientific School of Yale University. renewing, though at a comparatively 



It is the most masterly, comprehen- slow rate, requiring considerable time 



sive and authoritative deliverance on for a complete renewal. In this class 



the general subject of the Conservation are included the forests, which may be 



of Water by Storage that has ever entirely cut down, but which will 



appeared, and the chapters particularly ordinarily reproduce themselves in time, 



devoted to the water power question. In case of these resources, as in the 



in which the author is a recognized case of those in the first class, any 



leading expert, are most timely in view utilization diminishes the store available 



of the large amount of irrelevant talk for our immediate successors, although 



and political bias that has characterized distant future generations may be able 



much of the ]:)ublic discussion of this to replace the loss of those resources 



important economic question, not only which fall in the second class, 



in the National Congress but also in 3. ''Water power falls in a different 



the National Conservation Congress, class from either of the above, and 



Dr. Swain's opening chapter on seems to occupy a place by itself, 



"Conservation in General" is an illu- having several peculiar characteristics, 



minating summary highly instructive In the first place, while resources of the 



and suggestive to those who have first two kinds, if not utilized, are in 



already studied the subject and of the general stored and preserved for the use 



greatest value to the man or woman of future generations, water power, if 



who is seeking light on this great not utilized, is constantly wasting with 



national question. no good results to anybody. Neverthe- 



This general discussion is followed in less the water fiows day by day and 



Chapter II with a discussion of the year by year, and, speaking generally, 



Conservation of Water and its relation the power is perpetual. It is like a 



to the Conservation of other Resources, free gift offered by the Creator to man, 



What could be better or more succinct which fiows by him in a continuous 



than the following: stream and may be had for the asking. 



" It is clear that there are three kinds Water power, however, presents a 



of natural resources, in the Conserva- second peculiar characteristic in that 



tion of which we are concerned — its conservation is a double conserva- 



1. Those resources which are not re- tion. The utilization of water power 



newable, and in which utilization, even for a purpose for which steam power, 



though without waste, necessarily des- or some other form requiring the use of 



818 



