THE NATION AND THE WATERWAYS. 



By lewis M. HAUPT, C.E., A.M., Sc.D. 

 {Read April 22, 1909.) 



This mysterious planet which we inhabit has been the object of 

 profound reasearch by many self-constituted investigators since the 

 creation of man, yet he has not wholly unravelled her secrets nor 

 fathomed her innumerable resources. 



She may be likened to an immense gyroscope, whose pole is the 

 sun and whose radius-vector is the tether which checks her eccen- 

 tricities as she floats through space. Her form, size and density 

 have been carefully determined and it is found that of the four 

 great circles which constitute her envelope, only about 53,500,000 

 square miles are above the level of the sea, and that of this portion 

 but about 28,000,000 are arable land. 



Such is the present extent of our heritage, as a storehouse for 

 the maintenance of life, and it is recorded that when, in the process 

 of time, this physical orb had been suitably developed for habitation, 

 then the Lord God, by His creative Word, said : 



" Let us make man in our image, after our likeness and let them have 

 dominion over all the earth. ... So God created man and blessed them 

 and said unto them, ' Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and 

 subdue it ; and have dominion over . . . every living thing that moveth 

 upon the earth.' " 



In the fulfillment of this divine commission man has multiplied 

 in numbers, notwithstanding many vicissitudes, until to-day it is 

 estimated that there are not less than 1,500,000,000 souls to be sup- 

 plied with the necessities of life, yet the earth is not full, nor are 

 her resources exhausted. This enormous host of humanity is scat- 

 tered, more or less densely, over the habitable portion of the globe, 

 subject to different environments, beliefs, aspirations, habits, gov- 

 ernments, faculties and purposes, yet all imbued with the common, 



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