98 



the vast supply of natural gas, which has drawn together a rush of 

 population, and factory towns have sprung up at its bidding. 



The pi-ecious metals and stones are doing their part in developing 

 new countries. California, Australia, British Columbia and the South 

 African republic have in turn been peopled by miners. Towns sprang 

 up, first in canvas, then in wood, till by the exhaustion of surface and. 

 unskilled diggings, technical skill and division of labour became neces- 

 sai-y ; capital became more powerful than labour, companies controlled' 

 the mining by machiney, and the town founded in haste either dwindles 

 away, as may be seen at Silver City and at Golden, in our own Eocky 

 Mountains, or else developes the agricultural resources of the region, so 

 that its next generation is transformed into a prosperous farming com- 

 munity. When the first discovery of diamonds was made at Kimberly, 

 South Africa, a few miners' huts sprang up in a desert region ; now 

 Kimberly is a town of over 20,000 inhabitants, with a railway from the 

 coast, and with the most approved system of water-works and electric 

 lights. When the diamond supply fails, as eventually it must, the 

 frontier trade will suffice to support there a prosperous town, but no 

 such site wo^^ld ever have come into existence in so desert a land with- 

 out being developed by the valuable products of its mines. The country 

 dependent on minerals alone has been likened to a man depending on a 

 liberal expenditure of his capital for prosperity — the more lavishly he 

 spends it the wealthier he seems, but in reality the poorer he becomes^ 



With plants and animals this is different, and the wealth of 'a 

 people in live produce corresponds to the interest of a large capital. 

 They have no fixed natural distribution, but can be carried to new 

 regions j by cultivation and breeding, their value and number can -be 

 increased. 



Timber may be regarded as a typical natural vegetable product, but 

 large supplies of it do not concentrate population except under certain 

 conditions of water-power, etc., and even then, when the supply is 

 exhausted, unless something else takes its place, the town rapidly 

 declines. Even here in our own city, where the business of rafting used 

 to be largely carried on, the development of the forests by railways 

 piercing their midst has diverted or destroyed this business, and the 

 square timber that for years afforded work to hundreds in the rafting 



