Conservation of Natural Resources in California. 



43 



that of a vaudeville sketch. Geology is not dramatic in that neurotic 

 sense of the word which customarily we employ to-day. Yet you and I, 

 and this country 

 and other coun- 

 tries, are figures 

 in the great 

 drama. It might 

 not harm us to 

 tiote what a lead- 

 ing scientist says 

 as to the time of 

 the action of the 

 play : 



"For average 

 rock under ordi- 

 narily favorable 

 conditions in our 

 range of climate, 

 the usual esti- 

 mate has been a 

 foot of waste in 

 four thousand to 



six thousand years, which includes the channel cutting and bank under- 

 mining. These are too rapid for ordinary soil-waste under our normal 

 natural conditions. Without any pretensions to a close estimate, I 

 should be unwilling to name a mean rate of soil formation greater than 

 one foot in ten thousand years on the basis of observation since the 

 glacial period. I suspect that, if we could positively determine the 

 time taken in the formation of the four feet of soil next to' the rock 

 over the average domain where such depth obtains, it would be found 

 above rather than below forty thousand years. Under such an estimate, 

 to preserve good working depth, surface wastage should not exceed some 

 such rate as one inch in one thousand years. When our soils are gone 

 we too must go, unless we shall find some way to feed on raw rock or 

 its equivalent." 



So there is something in the story of the pleasant land. Search all the 

 dictionaries through, comb out all the rhetoric books, and you couldn't 

 get a happier phrase than that : ' ' The pleasant land. " It is excellent. 

 It is perfect. Like any other savage, you feel a deep thrill of delight 

 when you see the vast pictures of the unhurt out-of-doors. You have 

 delight in the sight of green trees, of growing grasses and nodding 

 flowers. This panorama of hill and dale, of rolling lands and forest- 

 covered valleys and lofty mountains pleases you. Why? It is because 



As a result of deforestation of the hills above, a little stream 

 swells to a torrent like this. The rich bottom land is carried 

 away, leaving only rocks and gravel behind. 



