40 THs pA DeULB ORNS baal aie ele. 
reformulation of traditional atti- 
tudes toward property, family, and 
ways of life in general. Growth 
cannot continue forever, the book 
concludes, and some hard choices 
are inevitable. 
THE OUTERMOST HOUSE 
by Henry Beston 
Ballantine Books, 1971, 95c 
Written over forty years ago, 
Henry Beston’s chronicle of his 
year of life on the Great Beach of 
Cape Cod has become a small 
classic. Mr. Beston is a honorary 
editor of the Audubon Magazine. 
In 1964, Secretary of the Interior 
Stuart Udall presided at a cere- 
mony which designated “the outer- 
most house” as a Literary Land- 
mark. 
The book can be read in an hour 
or two — the kind you would curl 
up with at a fireplace or on the 
beach — thoroughly enjoyable. It 
is good to have it reappear after 
a long absence. Beston comments 
upon the beach, autumn, ocean and 
birds, on life in midwinter, on 
humans and animals which visit 
him in the winter, and a delightful 
stroll in the spring. 
—RHaymond Mostek 
THE CLOSING CIRCLE 
by Barry Commoner 
Alfred A. Knopf, 1971 
256 pp, $6.95 
If any book could be called “the 
last word on the environment” it 
would certainly have to be this 
one. Of course it will not be the 
last word; other works will appear, 
good, bad and indifferent, but I 
doubt if there will be a better one 
in our time. 
Certainly none has been so com- 
plete, so thoroughly researched and 
so adequately documented. When 
you have “The Closing Circle,” try 
to think of some important sort of 
man’s assault on the environment 
that Commoner has not dealt with. 
Stuart Chase, himself a compe- 
tent conservationist author, says of 
“The Closing Circle” in his review 
in the “Living Wilderness”: “Now 
and again Dr. Commoner becomes 
almost too technical for the layman 
but the cumulative effect is power- 
ful and impressive.” 
It is feared that some readers 
who have forgotten their High 
School science will quit early, but 
T’ll venture that few conservation- 
ists who get through the second 
chapter will give up. By that time 
they just will not want to miss any 
of it. 
Three of its most informative 
chapters are: 
1. Poisoning of the Air (Los 
Angeles). 
2. Poisoning of the Earth (Illi- 
nois). 
3. Poisoning of the Water (Lake 
Erie). 
Of special interest to Mid-West- 
erners is the story of Illinois earth, 
in which results of a study by Dr. 
Commoner’s Washington Univer- 
sity, St. Louis, faculty and students 
in the super-excellent corn and soy- 
bean farm land around Decatur are 
reported, proving beyond doubt 
that run-off of heavy agricultural 
applications of nitrate fertilizer 
have dangerously polluted not only 
streams and lakes in the area, but 
ground water as well, including 
the city of Decatur’s own drinking 
water supply. (Could this be an 
important reason for this city’s pro- 
motion of the Oakley dam in the 
Sangamon River at Allerton Park?) 
The author sets the target of this 
book early with the _ theoretical 
