THEODORE ROOSEVELT 



693 



1896-1905 almost as much coal was 

 mined as had been produced during 

 the whole previous history of the United 

 States. In 1906 the consumption was 

 forty-six per cent greater than that of 

 the average of the preceding decade, 

 and the next year, 1907, consumed 

 66,000,000 tons more than was 

 mined in 1906. Mr. Carnegie has said : 

 "Still more wasteful than our process 

 of mining are our methods of consum- 

 ing coal. Of all the coal burned in the 

 power plants of the country, not more 

 than from five per cent to ten per cent 

 of the potential energy is actually used. 

 * * * Indeed, in ordinary electric-light 

 plants, hardly one-fifth of one per cent, 

 one five-hundredth part, of the energy 

 of coal is actually utilized." Dr. I. C. 

 White, state geologist of West Vir- 

 ginia, said at the White House Con- 

 ference, speaking of the waste of nat- 

 ural gas : "From personal knowledge of 

 conditions which exist in every oil and 

 gas field, I am sure the quantity will 

 amount to not less than one billion cubic 

 feet daily, and it may be much more. 

 The heating value of a billion cubic 

 feet of natural gas is roughly equivalent 

 to that of one million bushels of coal. 

 \Vhat an appalling record to transmit 

 to posterity." 



"There can be no doubt that for every 

 barrel of oil taken from the earth there 

 have been wasted more than ten times 

 its equivalent in either heating power 

 or weight of this, the best of all the 

 fuels, and also that much more than 

 half of this frightful waste would have 

 been avoided by proper care in oil- 

 production and slight additional ex- 

 penditure." 



The United States is turning out 

 nearly half the iron product of the 

 world, and at a rapidly increasing rate, 

 promising absolute extinction, at the 

 present rate of consumption, in forty 

 years. Inasmuch as there is no reason 

 to suppose that the world will come to 

 an end before that time, there is an 

 imperative call for the geographical 

 economist to take a hand in this insane 

 scramble of individualism. 



The loss to farm products due to in- 

 jurious mammals is something like 



26,000,000 annually, through plant 

 diseases, approximately 80,000,000, 

 and through insects, 134,800,000 each 

 year. 



Water is one of the economies of the 

 Nation, as vital to our existence as the 

 air we breathe. The sun lifts from the 

 ocean and spreads out over the United 

 States, in the form of rain or snow, 

 215 trillion cubic feet of water every 

 year. One-half of this is evaporated, a 

 third of it flows into the sea ; the other 

 sixth is absorbed or consumed. Out 

 of the seventy trillion cubic feet an- 

 nually flowing to the sea, less than one 

 per cent is harnessed and utilized for 

 local purposes, and less than five per 

 cent is used for navigation or power. 

 What becomes of the rest? The ques- 

 tion as to whether it shall be economized 

 and used, or wasted and allowed to 

 devastate the land, shall be decided in 

 the future, on the basis of the Nation's 

 verdict concerning nationalism versus 

 individualism. Over sixty trillion cu- 

 bic feet of the seventy trillion cubic 

 feet are not only absolutely lost to all 

 intelligent purposes of a rational gov- 

 ernment and an economic civilization ; 

 not only are they unused for irrigation, 

 navigation and power, but they exhaust 

 themselves in the wholly avoidable dev- 

 astation of freshets and floods. With 

 the recent denudations of the forest- 

 covers of our water-supplies the steady 

 increase in the yearly damage by floods 

 is startling. Since the year 1900 this 

 annual damage has been steadily in- 

 creasing from nine million pounds to 

 forty-six million six hundred thousand 

 pounds per annum, with the indirect 

 losses running into figures very much 

 higher than these. It is estimated that 

 the annual loss to farmers alone in soil 

 erosion is 100.000,000, and that the bil- 

 lion tons of soil matter annually carried 

 into lower rivers and harbors, or into 

 the sea, is all of this taken every year 

 off the farms and lands of the country, 

 resulting in even greater losses in the 

 pollution of waters and the impediments 

 of navigation and terminal transporta- 

 tion uses. 



This waste of the soil touches the 

 foundations of all and every civilization. 



