November 17, 1922] 



SCIENCE 



561 



The water wliieli drives the turbines of Niagara 

 may some day repeat its cycle but the gasoline 

 that drove your car to this conference will 

 never serve that purpose again. Yet in face 

 of these facts millions of gallons of oil are used 

 needlessly or are wasted in other ways. It is 

 estimated that for every ton of coal mined 

 thus- far one half ton to one and a half tons 

 have been wasted. We all know how carelessly 

 iron products are handled. Machinery is ex- 

 posed to the weather, tin cans are allowed to 

 rust away, though the tin is worth large sums, 

 and in many other ways there is a constant 

 loss. It has been estimated that our petroleum 

 supplies will be practically exhausted in a 

 quarter of a century, that the available coal 

 resources will be mined out in another hun- 

 dred years and that perhaps half a century 

 will see the exploitation of the best and most 

 accessible of our iron ores. These estimates 

 are based on productions similar to those of 

 recent years. Should the output largely 

 increase, the periods of availability wall be cor- 

 respondingly shortened. In this connection it 

 may be well to state that mineral production 

 in the United States advanced from a value of 

 nearly $2,400,000,000 in 1915 to a value of 

 over $6,700,000,000 in 1920, an increase of 

 nearly 300 per cent. 



In connection with the minerals and their 

 consumption let me call your attention to the 

 great field of service in the improvement of 

 power-saving machinery. It is said that our 

 steam engines utilize only 20 per cent, of the 

 available power in the coal used. Our systems 

 of heating are equally wasteful and must be 

 improved if we or our posterity are not to 

 suffer. It will not do to be thoughtless opti- 

 mists. We must mingle foresight and pru- 

 dence with our typical American hopeful front 

 toward the future. 



Other resources which must be held in higher 

 esteem and cherished with gi-eater care and 

 foresight are our water supplies, our forests 

 and other timber resources, together with all 

 other beneficial plants and flowers and native 

 animals. I shall only mention these, as they 

 are to be discussed by more able advocates 

 later at these sessions. I may call your atten- 

 tion in passing, however, to the recent news 



dispatches reporting nearly 400 forest fires in 

 the far west, many of which, no doubt, were 

 preventable, and to recent statements that 

 insects annually destroy a bUlion dollars' worth 

 of crops, a waste which the native birds would 

 greatly reduce if given a free hand. I wish 

 chiefly to emphasize here the point which I 

 made earlier, that the beauties and creatures of 

 nature which minister to our ethical and 

 esthetic senses are as truly worthy of our care 

 and attention as are these material necessities 

 of which I have spoken. The world would be 

 a cheerless habitation if it contained only iron 

 and coal and oQ and similar basic articles, so- 

 called. Our bodies must be cared for, it is 

 true, but are not our minds and our spirits of 

 equal value? Shall we not then care for the 

 things which help them to grow as well as for 

 these others? 



This leads me to another thought akin to 

 that with which I began this address. This is 

 an age of high-pressure living.- Is it not of 

 even greater importance that we conserve our- 

 selves than that we care for the things of the 

 world about us? Let me dwell for a moment 

 then on this topic. We need to conserve our 

 physical powers — by correct li-ving, by judi- 

 cious husbanding of all the gifts with which 

 we are blessed, by scornful repudiation of all 

 things which tend to weaken or break down 

 om- bodily endowments. They are ours not to 

 waste but to use. Service is one of the pass 

 words of the day. But service demands pre- 

 paredness, and preparedness means careful 

 training, self-restraint, symmetrical develop- 

 ment. Again, we must conserve our mental 

 powers and faculties. Never was there gi-eater 

 need of well-directed judgment, of poise, of 

 balance, of a high sense of personal responsi- 

 bility. I feel well-nigh heartsick at times at 

 the inaneness and mental vacuity of such a 

 mass of our young people, at their shallowness 

 of thought and feeling, at the seeming lack of 

 any sense of responsibility and obligation to 

 the world in which they live and to generations 

 yet to come. . I can only hope that experience 

 will deepen and broaden their minds and make 

 them more fitted to fulfill those duties which 

 must rest upon them. We are passing through 

 a period of revulsion and reaction from the 



