August 30, 1895.] 



SCIENCE. 



261 



have at some former occasion classified the 

 resources under four heads, namely : 



1. Eesources inexhaustible. 



2. Resources exhaustible and non-resto- 

 rable. 



3. Resources restorable, but liable to de- 

 terioration under increased activity. 



4. Resources restorable, and apt to yield 

 increased returns to increased activitJ^ 



Of the first class, hardly any one can be 

 mentioned that are usually denominated as 

 resources ; land, water, air and the forces 

 of nature would fall under this class, but 

 since it is not so much these things them- 

 selves as the conditions in which they are 

 found that make them resources, and since 

 these conditions are alterable by human 

 agency, their inexhaustibility with refer- 

 ence to human requirements is not entirely 

 established. With the land it is rather the 

 fertility of the soil that makes it a resource, 

 except so far as it serves for building pur- 

 poses. With' the water, except for the ab- 

 solute necessity of life, it is its desirable 

 distribution — terrestrial and atmospheric — 

 which constitutes it a resource in the sense 

 of satisfying human wants. 



Of such resources as are in time exhaust- 

 ible without the possibility of reproduction 

 we may mention the mines. The supply of 

 coal, 'the bread of industries,' in Europe is 

 calculated to last not more than three or 

 four centuries, although scarcity is expected 

 long before that time, and in our own coun- 

 try we are told that anthracite coal mines 

 do not promise more than sixty years of 

 supply under present methods of working. 

 The silver and gold mines, upon the basis 

 of which Nevada became a State, are said 

 to show signs of exhaustion. Oil fields and 

 natural gas wells of very recent discovery 

 belong to this class of exhaustible resources; 

 with their consumption in satisfying our 

 wants they are destroyed forever. 



The timber of the virgin forest and its 

 game, the water power of the sti-eams. 



largely dependent on the conditions of the 

 former, the fisheries, and to some extent 

 the local climate conditions, are resources 

 of the third order, capable in most in- 

 stances, of reproduction or restoration under 

 human care, after having been deteriorated 

 by uneconomic exploitation, or by change 

 of contingent conditions, as when brooks and 

 rivers are lessened in volume or else filled 

 with flood waters and debris in consequence 

 of forest destruction. 



Lastly, as resources restorable and yield- 

 ing increased returns to increased activity 

 we would find most of those resources 

 which are the product of human labor, 

 industry and ingenuity ; the accumulated 

 educational fund and other conditions of 

 civilization, the people themselves, capable 

 of performing labor. 



It might appear that of the natural re- 

 sources, the soil with its fertility, capable 

 under intensive cultivation of increasing its 

 yield, should be placed here, but when this 

 increased activity is unaccompanied by 

 rational methods this resource too will de- 

 teriorate almost to a degree where its res- 

 toration is practically precluded. 



Altogether, while possibility of restoration 

 has served in our classification, practica- 

 bility, i. e., the relation of expenditure of 

 energy and money to the result will have to 

 influence the ranging of the resources in 

 these classes as far as state activity with 

 regard to them is called for. 



Often it will be a difficult task to assign 

 a particular resource to a proper position 

 with regard to its bearing upon social inter- 

 est, but conservatism, which is the logical 

 policy of society, will lead us in cases of 

 doubt to lean toward the presumption that 

 the interests of society are more likely to 

 suffer than those of the individual; and a 

 mistake in curtailing private interests will 

 be more surely and easily corrected than 

 a mistake in not having in time guarded 

 social interests. 



