138 
The life of the coal beds has been variously estimated at from one 
hundred to five hundred years. The time will be longer or shorter, de- 
pending on our frugality or our prodigality. Yet our newspapers, among 
them the same ones that fought the use of meters for natural gas, fight 
the utilization of the power of Niagara Falls, calling upon state and 
national governments to preserve this wonder of Nature, the inference 
being that the use of the power of the Falls would mean the destruction 
of the Falls. Of course Niagara should not be exploited for the profit 
of individuals or corporations, nor should the Falls be destroyed. It 
might be arranged to permit, at certain times, all the water to go over 
the Falls for the delight of man. But in the opinion of the writer it is 
short-sighted, it is almost criminal, to permit millions of horse power of 
energy to go to waste, continually and continuously, merely for our en- 
joyment. Does the reader think it right to burn millions of tons of Coal 
each year that might be saved for future generations, all in order that 
we—some of us—may see the glory of Niagara? Who is sordid? The 
man who is willing to forego a magnificent spectacle for the good of future 
generations, or the man who would feast his eyes and let future genera- 
tions freeze? How does the Niagara waste differ in principle from the 
uncapping and lighting of a natural gas well with the gas under a pres- 
sure of hundreds of pounds per square inch, in order that people might 
hear the roar of escaping gas and see the heavens illuminated by a giant 
flame? 
I remember that when the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science met in Indianapolis in 1890, the committee on entertainment 
arranged for an excursion through the Indiana gas belt and a natural 
gas display. At one city pipes were laid in the river and the gas liberated 
under the water. We saw the river, in appearance, converted into a 
seething cauldron. The sight was grand, but not pleasing. A man of 
science could not avoid the thought that we were being entertained at 
a fearful cost to future generations. Recently the writer’s attention was 
called to the possibility of that display in the end conserving the gas 
supply instead of hastening its exhaustion. The display may have served 
to arouse sentiment against such wanton waste and consequently to 
hasten legislation prohibiting it. This may have been true in this par- 
ticular instance, for those who saw the waste were those to whom such 
a thing would make a strong appeal. But people generally saw reckless 
extravagance on every hand and were a party to it. The writer recalls 
