6p4 CONSERVATION 



The water flowing to the sea goes back even now, as cheap or cheaper than 



to the land from the sea ; the soil never steam installation, to exceed the entire 



does. The water, as it were, is the dev- mechanical power in use in the United 



astating agent, the soil the victim. So States and to "operate every mill, drive 



that as the continental plains are being every spindle, propel every train and 



torn down the ocean beds are being boat, and light every city, town, and 



filled up. The water returns to the village in the country. And there are 



soil, but the soil remains in the sea. over four times this much horsepower 



One of the most important problems, running to waste over the Federal Gov- 



therefore, is to keep the thousand mil- ernment dams alone.'' 

 lion tons of annually eroded soil on Mr. M. O. Leighton, chief hydrog- 



the land which needs it, 400,000,000 rapher of the United States Geolog- 



tons of which is being emptied into the ical Survey, says : "Our inland waters 



Gulf of Mexico every year through the are our greatest national resource. The 



Mississippi River alone. When we re- water flowing down our western moun- 



member how much of the top of the tains far exceeds in value the fabulous 



superficial area of the North American wealth represented by all the metals 



Continent the Mississippi has carried and minerals lying between the Rockies 



to the Gulf of Mexico, and made a and the Pacific. 



layer approximately a quarter of a mile "To-day most of this resource is 

 deep, and laid it over an area of nearly wasted. Each year at least 1,600,000 

 a hundred thousand square miles of the horsepower runs over Federal Govern- 

 Gulf coastal plain, we realize the im- ment dams. Rented at $20 per horse- 

 portance of stopping the soil erosion, power, this would yield $32,000,000. 

 which has been increased rather than Capitalized at three per cent, it rep- 

 diminished by the wasteful hand of resents an investment of $1,066,000,000 

 man. We must save those forests which now wholly wasted." 

 Nature has providentially planted along And yet, with an unintelligent and 

 the tens of thousands and hundreds of incredible parsimony, we refuse the 

 thousands of miles of tributaries and initial investment which would utilize 

 sub-tributaries, which the settler in his a large portion of the ninety-eight per 

 recklessness has been cutting away ; we cent of waste water-power, while we 

 must build great reservoirs in the hin- are using up our coal and gas and oil 

 terland where the eroded soil may be as if they would last forever, 

 deposited, where the water may be clar- Out of the 215 trillion cubic feet of 

 ified and shorn of much of its cutting water annually raised by the sun and 

 power, where the water which now available for human uses, it has been 

 stands for freshet and disaster may be seen that ninety per cent of the avail- 

 held back until the river banks have able dynamic power in foot-tons of the 

 been bared by the drought; and we seventy trillion of cubic feet are not 

 must turn these stored floods through onlv wasted, so far as economic power 

 the irrigating ditches to fertilize the and use are concerned, but are each year 

 desert, and over power wheels to make becoming a monster of destruction more 

 the "wheels go round." ungovernable. The question of water- 

 Let it be remembered that it takes supply and conservation and use instead 

 10,000 years for Nature to make a of avoidable disaster, becomes one. 

 foot of soil, and that through our blun- therefore, of vital moment for the en- 

 dering unintelligence we waste often in tire Nation. It requires the immediate 

 ten years what it will take Nature a and intelligent and sustained attention 

 thousand years, to restore. of the legislative and executive depart- 

 \Ye are told that the possible horse- ments of the country, as well as that of 

 power in our streams is over 230,- the whole people, who must decide at 

 000,000. of which we use about two once between the patriot and the land- 

 per cent ; that there is enough of this skinner. This is a subject that cannot 

 available, /. c., 37,000,000 horsepower. even be approached from the point of 



