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The life of the coal beds has been variously estimated at from one 

 hundred to five hundred years. The time will be longer or shorter, de- 

 pending on our frugality or our prodigality. Yet our newspapers, among 

 them the same ones that fought the use of meters for natural gas, fight 

 the utilization of the power of Niagara Falls, calling upon state and 

 national governments to preserve this wonder of Nature, the inference 

 being that the use of the power of the Falls would mean the destruction 

 of the Falls. Of course Niagara should not be exploited for the profit 

 of individuals or corporations, nor should the Falls be destroyed. It 

 might be arranged to permit, at certain times, all the water to go over 

 the Falls for the delight of man. But in the opinion of the writer it is 

 short-sighted, it is almost criminal, to permit millions of horse power of 

 energy to go to waste, continually and continuously, merely for our en- 

 joyment. Does the reader think it right to burn millions of tons of coal 

 each year that might be saved for future generations, all in order that 

 we — some of us — may see the glory of Niagara? Who is sordid; The 

 man who is willing to forego a magnificent spectacle for the good of future 

 generations, or the man who would feast his eyes and let future genera- 

 tions freeze? How does the Niagara waste differ in principle from the 

 uncapping and lighting of a natural gas well with the gas under a pres- 

 sure of hundreds of pounds per square inch, in order that people might 

 hear the roar of escaping gas and see the heavens illuminated by a giant 

 flame ? 



I remember that when the American Association for the Advancement 

 of Science met in Indianapolis in 1890, the committee on entertainment 

 arranged for an excursion through the Indiana gas belt and a natural 

 gas display. At one city pipes were laid in the river and the gas liberated 

 under the water. We saw the river, in appearance, converted into a 

 seething cauldron. The sight was grand, but not pleasing. A man of 

 science could not avoid the thought that we were being entertained at 

 a fearful cost to future generations. Recently the writer's attention was 

 called to the possibility of that display in the end conserving the gas 

 supply instead of hastening its exhaustion. The display may have served 

 to arouse sentiment against such wanton waste and consequently to 

 hasten legislation prohibiting it. This may have been true in this par- 

 ticular instance, for those who saw the waste were those to whom such 

 a thing would make a strong appeal. But people generally saw reckless 

 extravagance on every hand and were a party to it. The writer recalls 



