294 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



effects the pecuniary loss from materials lost in smelter smoke may seem 

 unimportant, but measured in dollars and cents it is considerable. Take, 

 for example, bismuth for which there is a steady commercial demand. 

 According to a conservative estimate, in the smoke of the great Washoe 

 smelter at Anaconda there are lost 880 pounds daily. Considering that 

 10,000 pounds represents the annual American production, it is evident 

 that eleven days would see a waste equal to a year's output of our mines. 



Such is the black picture that is painted for us. What of the fu- 

 ture ? Must the human race abandon a large part of the earth's surface, 

 which it has conquered, because of insufficient means to maintain its 

 bodily warmth ? Or must it become a race of troglodytes, dragging out 

 its degenerate existence in the caverns of the earth ? Will our agricul- 

 ture deteriorate, little by little, until the scanty crops from an impover- 

 ished soil hardly support a degraded people ? Or will the air and water 

 become so polluted that the race, if it be not so modified as to meet the 

 new conditions, must become extinct? Is our boasted civilization only 

 a myth, the growth of which leads inevitably to destruction ? 



Can our natural resources be so conserved as to supply the immedi- 

 ate and the future needs of the nation? Of what avail is our science 

 which we have so often exalted, and how far can it help us in the solu- 

 tion of this perplexing problem ? 



We must see that the only conservation which can avail is conserva- 

 tion with utilization, a concept which was clearly set forth by President 

 Taf t in his recent St. Paul address : 



The idea should not be allowed to prevail that conservation is the tying up 

 of the natural resources of the government or indefinite withholding from use. 

 Real conservation involves wise, non-wasteful use in the present generation, 

 with every possible means of preservation for succeeding generations. 



As we face the problem can we say, as did Patrick Henry, of polit- 

 ical questions, " I know of no way of judging of the present but by the 

 past," and, judging by the past, has our science achieved anything which 

 should give us unshakable confidence in its power to meet this crisis? 

 Let us look back into the not too distant past of science for the answer. 

 It comes from many parts of her realm. I may perhaps be pardoned 

 if I draw most of my illustrations from that field with which I am most 

 familiar. 



While science has met the demands of the time as they have arisen 

 she does not, as a rule, much anticipate them. It was only after years 

 of extensive working of the saltpeter deposits of South America that in 

 1889 Sir William Crookes brought home to the civilized world the true 

 significance of the situation — that the supply of combined nitrogen was 

 approaching exhaustion; that this meant the cessation of plant and 

 animal life, and that to avert such a calamity new sources of these com- 

 pounds must be sought. At the time one means of relief was suggested 



