NEED OF CONSERVATION 339 



only a few years at most cheap fuel will have passed into history from 

 this great district. 



Disguise it as we may, the picture is not a pleasing one. The great 

 engineers and captains of industry, whose skill and genius, aided by an 

 unrivaled wealth of cheap fuel and the protecting aegis of a wise and gen- 

 erous government, have centered here the iron and steel business of the 

 world, should not glance at the picture and turn lightly away to forget 

 it in the busy hum of furnace and forge. These wonderful industries 

 should remain here and prosper not a few decades, but for centuries. 

 But just as surely as the successful past and glorious present have been 

 founded upon unrivaled resources in cheap fuel, so surely will these great 

 industries decline and die with its disappearance. "Mene, Mene, Tekel, 

 Upharsin" will be written large over the gateways of the Pittsburg dis- 

 trict before the present century closes, unless the men who own the mines 

 and factories awake at once to the danger that portends. 



What will it profit these industries that enormous coal deposits exist in 

 Wyoming, North Dakota, Montana, and far away Alaska, as well as in 

 other portions of the distant west, when a freight cost of many dollars 

 per ton intervenes? No, these western coal fields are not for Pittsburg. 

 Nature has forbidden it by barriers which the skill of man can never 

 hope to conquer. When the coal in the Appalachian field is gone, no 

 other field can take its place in Pittsburg's industrial life. 



Every citizen of our beloved union is interested in perpetuating as long 

 as possible the giant industries that have sprung into existence around 

 the home of Father Pitt. When the mighty pulsations of this industrial 

 life slow down even temporarily, lethargy and palsy strike every artery 

 of trade and commerce on the continent. The postponement or preven- 

 tion of the evil day when these great industries shall close for want of 

 power is worthy of the best thought of every patriotic American. 



Eemedy foe the Evils of Waste 



What is the remedy ? What is possible to be done in order to postpone 

 indefinitely this dreaded day, so fateful to industrial life? The answer 

 may be summed up in two words — Stop wastes. Not alone waste of nat- 

 ural gas, waste in mining, but all other needless wastes. Why should the 

 flaming throats of so many wasteful coke ovens continue to vomit sky- 

 ward such enormous volumes of precious gaseous fuel, with its clouds of 

 carbon to pollute the air, stifle vegetation, and render life a burden, when 

 all of this wasted energy will so soon be needed in our unrivaled fac- 

 tories ? True, your furnace managers may say the coke from the beehive 

 oven is superior in structure and reducing capacity to that of the by- 

 product process. But is this superiority sufficiently great to warrant the 

 waste of so much heat, and all of the other precious by-products which 



