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from what they were when the Phoenician keels first furrowed the lonely 
waters of the Mediterranean. The differences were those of degree, not 
of kind, and they were not in all cases even those of degree. Mining 
was carried on fundamentally as it had been carried on by the Pharaohs 
in the countries adjacent to the Red Sea. 
In 1776 the wares of the merchants of Boston, of Charleston, like 
the wares of the merchants of Ninevah and Sidon, if they went by 
water, were carried by boats propelled by sails or oars; if they went by 
land, were carried in wagons drawn by beasts of draft or in packs on 
the backs of beasts of burden. The ships that crossed the high seas 
were better than the ships that 3,000 years before crossed the Aegean; 
but they were of the same type, after all — they were wooden ships pro- 
pelled by sails; and on land the roads were not as good as the roads of 
the Roman Empire, while the service of the posts was probably inferior. 
In Washington's time anthracite coal was known only as a useless 
black stone; and the great fields of bituminous coal were undiscovered. 
As steam was unknown, the use of coal for power production was un- 
dreamed of. Water was practically the only source of power, save the 
labor of men and animals; and this power was used only in the most 
primitive fashion. But a few small iron deposits had been found in 
this country, and the use of iron by our countrymen was very small. 
Wood was practically the only fuel, and what lumber was sawed was 
consumed locally, while the forests were regarded chiefly as obstruc- 
tions to settlement and civilization. 
Such was the degree of progress to which civilized mankind had at- 
tained when this Nation began its career. It is almost impossible for 
us in this day to realize how little our Revolutionary ancestors knew 
of the great store of natural resources whose discovery and use have 
been such vital factors in the growth and greatness of this Nation, and 
how little they required to take from this store in order to satisfy 
their needs. 
Since then our knowledge and use of the resources of the present 
territorv of the United States have increased a hundredfold. Indeed, 
the growth of this Nation by leaps and bounds makes one of the most 
striking and important chapters in the history of the world. Its growth 
has been due to the rapid development, and alas! that it should be said, 
to the rapid destruction, of our natural resources. Nature has supplied 
to us in the United States, and still supplies to us, more kinds of re- 
sources in a more lavish degree than has ever been the case at any other 
time or with any other people. Our position in the world has been at- 
tained by the extent and thoroughness of the control we have achieved 
over nature; but we are more, and not less, dependent upon what she 
furnishes than at any previous time of history since the days of primi- 
tive man. 
Yet our fathers, though they knew so little of the resources of the 
country exercised a wise forethought in reference thereto. Washington 
clearly saw that the perpetuity of the states could only be secured by 
union, and that the only feasible basis of union was an economic one; 
in other words, that it must be based upon the development and use of 
their natural resources. Accordingly, he helped to outline a scheme of 
commercial development, and by his influence an interstate waterways 
commission was appointed by Maryland and Virginia. 
It met near where we are now meeting, in Alexandria, adjourned 
to Mount Vernon, and took up the consideratiou of interstate commerce 
by the only means then available, that of water. Further conferences 
were arranged, first at Annapolis and then at Philadelphia. It was in 
Philadelphia , that the representatives of all the states met for what was 
in its original conception merely a waterways conference; but when they 
had closed their deliberations the outcome was the Constitution which 
made the states into a Nation. 
The Constitution of the United States thus grew in large part out 
of the necessity for united action in the wise use of our natural re- 
