ADDRESSES OF MAJOR LACEY 89 



using these resources ; we have wasted them as reckless 

 prodigals. The coal has been preserved in spite of man 

 by the vast strata of protecting earth and stone, but we 

 may even now begin to compute the time when the an- 

 thracite will take its place in the museum along with the 

 bones of the mastodon and the eggs of the great auk and 

 dodo. Coal oil and gas fields have been tapped with in- 

 numerable wells and given over to destruction as if the 

 supply were inexhaustible. The flame from the burning 

 gas well lights up the country and signalizes the waste 

 and recklessness of the owner. 



Perhaps the grandest forest now remaining on the 

 earth is that in northern California, Oregon, and Wash- 

 ington. I visited Oregon first in 1887, and as I got off 

 the cars some one shouted to me, "Run this way quick 

 and you will see Mount Hood." I presumed Mount Hood 

 was a fixture, and took a few minutes' time in getting out 

 to the open street where the beautiful peak glistened a 

 moment in the sun and then resumed its veil of smoke 

 and fog. I remained many days in the vicinity, but that 

 was the first, last, and only view I ever had of that noble 

 mountain. The whole country was covered by a pall of 

 smoke from the burning forests. 



This was more wicked than the destruction of our for- 

 ests on the Atlantic only because the great woods of the 

 Pacific are finer, and for the further reason that they are 

 our last. The example of the Atlantic states is one to 

 profit by. It is an awful example for wisdom to shun. 

 I remember the hills and streams of^the eastern states in 

 my boyhood. After long absence I revisited some of 

 these old streams. The trees had been felled and the 

 springs had gone dry. The swimming holes were filled 

 with dry sand and gravel. The club women of America 

 are moving for the preservation of the big trees of Cali- 

 fornia, and it now looks as if Niagara Falls might yet be 



