CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—DOUGLAS, Sra 
were wasting. With more profound knowledge and better instru- 
ments for observation and investigation they are patiently unravel- 
ing nature’s secrets and learning how to turn her forces to human 
uses. I cited a case of the unavoidable waste of copper ore, of fuel, 
and of human labor in the treatment of the oxidized copper ores of 
Arizona twenty years ago. The men who were wasting acted upon 
their knowledge and skill. So now it often happens that in response 
to the urgent call which modern society makes by fits and starts 
for enormously increased productiveness of various commodities, the 
demand can be met only at the expense of waste of nature’s resources, 
of human energy, and even of human life. If a more staple balance 
could be maintained between supply and demand; if the current 
of domestic and economic life would run more smoothly; if wealth 
were not accumulated so easily and spent so lavishly; if those 
marvelous improvements to which we have referred were not period- 
ically made, which give these irresistible impulses to world-wide 
human energy, thereby bringing about these oscillations between 
hard times and good times, between labor dearth and labor surplus; 
if all these disturbing elements were obliterated, certainly there 
would be less waste, and possibly there would be more happiness. 
But it is neither our part nor within our power, as mining and 
metallurgical engineers, to reconstruct society or renovate the world. 
Yet it is our duty to continue using our best efforts—whether the 
world recognizes our merits or not—to get the utmost energy out of 
human life as well as out of the inert material we handle, with the 
least possible exhaustion of human tissue and the smallest possible 
waste of mineral or vegetable material. 
DISCUSSION OF THE PAPER OF JAMES DOUGLAS, PRESENTED AT 
THE NEW HAVEN MEETING, FEBRUARY, 1909. 
James Douglas, New York (communication to the secretary) : 
In my paper on the Conservation of Natural Resources I referred to 
the slow replacement of beehive ovens by the by-product ovens as a 
most notable instance of waste. And I quoted from Mr. Parker’s 
report for 1906 an explanation given by him in accounting for the 
small production of by-product coke. It was that the market for 
the by-products of the coke ovens was so limited that some of the 
ovens constructed were out of operation. His report on the manu- 
facture of coke in 1908% does not record an improvement, and at- 
@ Received February 2, 1910. Reprinted from Transactions of the American 
Institute of Mining Engineers, 1909, pp. 341-343. 
® Mineral Resources of the United States for 1908, Part II, U. S. Geological 
Survey (1909). 
45745°—sm 1909 22 
