THE INEXHAUSTIBLE RESOURCE 

 OF TECHNOLOGY 



^ Thomas B. Nolan 



The part played by physical scientists and engineers in the early his- 

 tory of the conservation movement has, I suspect, been forgotten in 

 the fifty years that have elapsed since the Governors' Conference of 

 1908. And it seems equally true that the influence of these two pro- 

 fessions in materially changing the nature of the movement during 

 these fifty years has also been overlooked. 



However, I shall mention only briefly the early interest of scientists 

 and engineers in conservation, and shall devote most of this paper to 

 the thesis that there have been major modifications in the nature and 

 objectives of the conservation movement since 1908, and that, to a 

 marked degree, these changes result from the much more reassuring 

 picture of our natural resource situation brought about by the re- 



THOMAS B. NOLAN is Director of the United States Geological Sur- 

 vey. He received his undergraduate training at Yale University and the Ph.D. 

 in geology from that institution in 1924. Upon completion of the doctorate he 

 joined the Geological Survey. His principal professional activities have con- 

 cerned the geology of mineral deposits in the Gold Hill, Tonopah, and Eureka 

 mining districts. In 1954 he was awarded the K. C. Li medal for research on 

 tungsten and in 1933 the Spendiaroif Prize of the International Geological 

 Congress. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American 

 Philosophical Society, and many professional societies and organizations. He 

 was bom in Greenfield, Massachusetts, in 1901. 



The author wishes to note his indebtedness to H. M. Bannerman, Julian 

 Feiss, and Luna B. Leopold for helpful criticism and suggestions, and to Miss 

 Jane Wallace for very material assistance in the preparation of this paper. 



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