594 



THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



An oil expert, Mr. Pollard, was put to 

 the task of saving the billions of feet of 

 gas wasting daily into the air from the 

 oil wells of Oklahoma, and was success- 

 ful. Mr. Cottrell has devised a method 

 of taking solids and liquids out of smelter 

 smoke, such as sulphuric acid, arsenic, 

 zinc, and lead. 



A NATION OF INVENTORS 



During the past 50 years the people of 

 the United States have uttered two-thirds 

 of all the revolutionary epoch-making in- 

 ventions of the world, ranging from the 

 telephone and the incandescent lamp to 

 Wright's aeroplane and high-speed steel 

 (see page 593). Each day we issue an 

 average of 200 letters patent to American 

 inventors, and the number of inventions 

 is increasing with the years. 



There are over 20,000,000 boys and 

 girls in the public schools of the United 

 States. 



TH£ ERA OF SPLENDID GIVING 



These, then, are the assets of the United 

 States as revealed in but this one depart- 

 ment — lands and waters and mines, in- 

 ventors and chemists and engineers, and 

 a new generation coming on which will 

 add still further to the adventurous an- 

 nals of peace. What has been our policy 

 with respect to these? How may they 

 be the more highly put to use? These 

 questions are seen to be more vital than 

 ever before. And at the outset let me 

 say that I find no need for a change of 

 policy, but only for its expansion. 



We have given of our resources as no 

 people ever did before or ever can again. 

 Within 50 years we gave in subsidies to 

 our railroads public lands that exceeded 

 in size a territory seven times as large as 

 the State of Pennsylvania. We have 

 given to the States, for the sustaining of 

 their schools and other public institutions, 

 an amount that our records do not accu- 

 rately state; but this we know, that 13 

 western States were given over 67,000,- 

 000 acres. 



In addition, the Federal government 

 gave to the States all the swamp and 

 overflowed public lands within their bor- 

 ders, amounting to 64,000,000 acres by 

 roughest approximation, upon condition 

 that they used the proceeds to reclaim the 



lands — a condition which it may be idle 

 to state has been only in part complied 

 with. 



Every country has found itself in em- 

 barrassment at the close of a great war. 

 From Rome under Caesar to France 

 under Napoleon the problem arose as to 

 what could be done with the men who 

 were to be mustered out of service. No 

 such embarrassment, however, came to 

 the United States at the end of the Civil 

 War, for out of our wealth in lands we 

 had farms to offer the million veterans — 

 and better use was never made of any 

 land. Even today this "soldiers' scrip" 

 is recognized and is filed to secure choice 

 bits of forest lands or power sites. 



Indeed, the peoples of the world were 

 called in and tendered homes, until now, 

 out of an acreage within the United 

 States of a full billion and a half of acres 

 of public domain, we have left as public 

 lands subject to disposal and homesteads 

 and otherwise less than 280,000,000 

 acres,* not one-half of which, it may 

 safely be said, will ever prove to be culti- 

 vable. There passed out of this office 

 last year 61,979 patents to land, some for 

 160 acres and some for 320 acres — dona- 

 tions from the nation to the courageous 

 pioneer. 



The man who finds gold or silver or 

 iron or lead or copper, or any other of 

 the so-called metalliferous minerals, has 

 it for the asking — a prize for discovery. 

 We expend $1,500,000 a year now in the 

 making of geological and other studies of 

 the country that we may know what we 

 have.f 



GO FORTH AND FIND 



And all the revenue from the sale of 

 public lands (less 5 per cent, which goes 



* When the grants to the States are satisfied 

 this amount will be diminished by over 15,- 

 000,000 acres. 



t As a utilization in most practical form of 

 these studies there have been published during 

 the past year four books of an original char- 

 acter — geological guide-books along the west- 

 ern railroad lines, one along the Northern Pa- 

 cific, another along the Union and Central 

 Pacific, a third along the Santa Fe route, and 

 a fourth along the Southern Pacific coast line. 

 These tell by map and picture in simple and 

 untechnical language the story of the forma- 

 tion and character of the land through which 

 the tourist is passing. 



