1878.] 
Economy of Nitrogen. 
165 
of the matter most essential to life — has reached a height 
truly ominous and alarming to contemplate. It is sad to 
think that our civilisation, with all its glories, may be most 
aptly described in those lines from the “ The Devil’s Walk 
on Earth 
6S The pig swam well, but everv stroke 
Was cutting his own throat.'’ 
We know now, approximately at least, the extent of the 
earth’s resources. We have no more vast and scarcely 
trodden continents for us to discover. We can no longer 
calculate on finding coal, or phosphates, or other useful pro- 
ducts, at any point where we may choose to dig. No more 
can we comfort ourselves with vague hopes that emptied 
mines and exhausted soils will spontaneously grow rich 
again, or that plants can create their own nourishment. 
Nor can we lay the flattering unCtion to our souls that for 
every utility no longer procurable a substitute will be found. 
The dreams indulged in by enthusiasts in the earlier portion 
of the present century — of a future measured perhaps by 
millions of years, in which mankind will be constantly im- 
proving in power, in knowledge, and in happiness — are 
being somewhat rudely broken. Science tells us, in unmis- 
takable tones, that this earth cannot for ever afford a home 
to a race like ours. What, for instance, would be the con- 
dition of mankind were all the habitable parts of the globe 
as populous, as industrial, and as luxurious as are Western 
and Central Europe and the eastern part of North America? 
Whence would they all be able to import their needed sup- 
plies of food, of manures, and of raw materials for manu- 
facturing purposes ? Time was when England produced a 
sufficiency of food for her own inhabitants. Then came a 
time when she began to import, and that in ever-increasing 
proportions, both food and manures. Next we mark that 
the countries which formerly exported food and manurial 
matters — i.e., ground bones, &c. — ceased to do so, became 
importers instead of exporters of both, and competed with 
us in the market. The Atlantic States of the American 
Union import manures, and can scarcely supply food for 
their home population. By-and-bye must come a time when 
Chili, California, South Russia, Hungary, will require all 
the wheat they can produce for their own consumption. 
The eyes of our political economists will perforce be opened 
to the truth that every country unable to feed its own popu- 
lation is in a dangerous predicament. The civilised world 
is now in the position of a spendthrift who is gradually 
