UTAH ACADEMY OF SCIENCES 169 
Nature would have a limit to the soil’s supporting 
strength, but man robs the air of its nitrogen and the rocks 
of their phosphorus and potash to revivify the unwilling 
earth. 
Nature would have man the victim of insidious enemies 
that stop or clog the human machine, but man distills from 
the buried carbons agents that stay destruction for a time, 
and now man has found a mineral which gives promise of 
opening the way into a new world of mysterious restoration. 
This is a glorious battle in which you are fighting— 
the geologist who reads the hieroglyphs that nature has 
written, the miner who is the Columbus of the world under- 
ground, the engineer, the chemist, and the inventor who out 
of curiosity plus courage, plus imagination, fashion the 
swords of a triumphing civilization. Indeed it is hardly 
too much to say that the extent of man’s domain and his 
tenure of the earth rest with you.” 
