Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1891-02-19
lMASON'S GLOOMY VIEW.
HE MAKES A PREDICTION WHICH is
IMPORTANT IF TRUE.

or So Says the Professor.
Otis Mason. of the bureau of ethnology
of the National museum, has evolved a
theory that the resources of the western
hemisphere will. in a comparatively
short time, be exhausted as support for
civilized man. and that North and South
America viii be depopulated, except by
savages of very low order. Professor
Mason said:
''In order that this may be understood,
it is first necessary to explain that this
western part of the world, known as
North and South America, is from the
scientific point of view an inferior con-
tinent, as compared with the land masses
of the other hemispheres. By that is
meant that. while superior to Europe,
Asia or Africa in point of vegetable
productiveness, it is less adapted for the
support of animal life To show that
this is so, make a little comparison for
yourself between the beasts of this hemi-
sphere and those of the other. The ele-
phant of the Old World is represented
here by the tapir. What we have as a
substitute for the camel is the llama,
which is just big enough and strong
enough to carry what would be load
for man. The lion and tiger of Asia
and Africa are represented on this side
of the earth by little more than big cats.
LOOK AT OUR MONKEYS.
"But to arrive at the most marked ex-
hibition of this contrast you cannot do
better than consider the monkeys, which
are most highly developed of all beasts,
approaching very nearly to man. What
is there to be found in the Americas to
correspond with the anthropoid apes of
the Old World? The gorilla, which uses
a club; the chimpanzee, which is easily
taught to wait upon the table and to
perform other domestic duties, and the
ourang, which presents so many like
nesses to the human being, are repre-
sented on this side of the world by mis-
erable little monkeys with tails.
''Thus it is that this part of the earth
is termed an inferior continent, because
it is not able to produce or support such
high developments of animal life as are
found in the other part. Civilized man
exists here to day, not as a natural prod
uct, but as an importation.
Professor Mason then, in elaborate de-
tail, described the lapse of wheat farm
ing in one state after another until the
field has been transported to the Dako-
tas and the very verge of the great desert;
the rapid exhaustion of the soil and of
the minerals; the tremendous drain in
every way upon resources, which, new
ly developed as they are, must be nearly
exhausted even within the next century;
the ruinous cost of producing and trans
porting articles necessary to civilized
life. He then concluded his remarkable
forecast as follows:
ITO put it plainly, the so called Amer
ican people have camped over this con-
tinent regardless of their future. They
have delved into the soil, chopped into
the mountains and used up the land un-
til there stares them in the face the al
most immediate prospect of starvation.
As for the state of Nevada, we have not
been there twenty-five years, and its re-
sources have been exhausted In other
words. it will almost Immediately be
unable to support a population. The
people who inhabit it are obliged to go
because they can no longer make their
living there, and it is simply question
of a short time when it will become a
dead state, and SO lapse into the condi-
ton of a territory as impossible to re-
vive into the living condition of state
as if it were district on the moon.
PAINFUL REFLECTIONS.
"The painful reflection incidental to
the subject is that other states, if not all
of them, are destined sooner or later to
follow Nevada's example. The popula-
ton on this continent cannot necessarily
survive the means of subsistence afford
ed it by the country. If what science
says is true, the white man has got to
CO. There has been talk to the effect
that the Chinese must vanish, but it
must be confessed they are very much
better adapted to continue existence on
this hemisphere than ourselves. for the
obvious reason that they will survive us
here, and that they will continue in their
own manner the civilization which we
have made an attempt to start.
''But the Caucasian, if the scientific
men are to be believed, will not be able
to support existence on this hemisphere
after the capital, in the way of agricult-
ural and mineral resources, has been ex-
hausted, as it must be soon. Hewin dis
appear. The natural question is by what
process? 1t is very evident. When a
superior race becomes poor, and thereby
unable to maintain its superiority, it
lapses into the condition of poor white
The Caucasian does become thriftless,
of exertion, eventually ap-
to the savage. In other words,
be loses his status in the scale of crea-
ton.
Through the progressive exhaustion
Of the resources of the country, state
after state will necessarily become unin-
habitable, because it will be incapable
Of supporting population. Thus will
come about the depopulation of one state
after another-of course by slow proc
ass through many years-and there will
be presented the remarkable phenom-
enon of the dropping from the Union of
these states successively, because they
have come to be no longer entitled to
under the law, by sena-
tors and representatives.
Nevada will simply be the first state
to succumb to the operation of this in
law. The outlook is melancholy |
That is not to be denied. tits not pleas
ant to consider the frame of mind of the
last civilized man on this continent a
few centuries hence, standing ON sand
hill, where once the maize luxuriously
grew, and shedding silent tear of affec-
ton on the past of a continent which is
given up to savagery ever more. Wash
ington Cor. Pittsburg Dispatch.
Effect of Copper Salts on India Rubber
In recent paper Mr. W. Thomson, Of
England, said that it is
known that copper salts have a most in
furious effect on india rubber, and as
copper is sometimes used in dyeing
blacks and other colors cloth so dyed is
liable to decompose and harden the rub.
her mt into if A Deculiarity inyesti-