Evening capital. (Annapolis, Md.) 1884-1910, 1892-02-15
Mud.

Even a prejudiced observer will readily
admit that the most valuable mineral on
earth is mud. Diamonds and rubies are
just nowhere by comparison. l don't
mean weight for weight, OF eourse-mud
is "cheap as dirt, to buy in small guam
tities-but aggregate for aggregate. Quite
literally, and without hocus pocus of any
sort, the money valuation of the mud in
the world must outnumber many thou
sand times the money valuation of all the
other minerals put together. Only we
reckon it not by the ton, but by the acre
though the acre is worth most where the
mud lies deepest. Nay, more, the worlds
wealth is wholly based on mud. Corn,
not gold is the true standard of value.
Without mud there would be no human
life, no productions of any kind for
foodstutfs of every description are raised
on mud; and where no mud exists, OF
can be made to exist, there, we say,
there is desert OF sand waste.
Land without mud has no economic
value. To put it briefly, the only parts
Of the world that count much for human
habitation ars the mud deposits of the
great rivers, and notably of the Nile,
the Euphrates, the Ganges, the Indus. the
lrrawaddy, the Hoaug Ho, the Yang tse-
kiang; of the Po, the Rhone, the Dan
ube, the Rhine. the Nolga, the Dnieper;
Of the st. Lawrence. the Mississippi, the
Missouri, the Orinoco, the Amazons. the
La Plata. A cornfield is just big mass
of mud and the deeper and pmer aud
freer of stones or other impurities it is
the better. But England you say, is not
a great river mud field yet il supports
tae dcnscst population in the world.
True, Gut England is snexceptional prod
uct of modern civilization. She can't
feed herself she is fed from Odessa. Al
exandria, Bombay, New York, Montreal,
Buenos Ayrss--in, other words, from the
mud fields of the Russian, the Egyptian,
the Indian, the American, the Canadian.
the Argentine rivers. Orentes, said Ju-
vensl, has flowed into Tiber; Nile, we
may say nowadays with equal truth, has
flowed into Thames.
There is nothing to make one realize
the Importance OF mud, indeed, like a
journey up the Nile when the inundation
is just over. You lounge on the deck
Of your dahabieh, and drink in geogra-
ply almost without knowing. The voy-
age forms perfect introduction 10 the
study Of mudology, and suggests to the
observant mind (meaning you aud mel
the real nature of mud as nothing else
on earth that know OF can suggest it,
For in Egypt you get your phenomenon
isolated, as il were, from sll disturbing
elements. You have no rainfall to
bother you, no local streams, no complex
inundation; the Nile does all, and the
Nile does everything.
On either hand stretches away the bare
desert, rising up in gray rocky hills.
Down the midst runs the one long line Of
alluvial soil-in other words Nile mud
which alone allows cultivation and life
IN that rainless district The country
bases itself absolutely on mud. The
crops are raised on it; the houses and
villages are built Of it; the land is ma
nured with it; the very air is full Of it.
The crude brick buildings that dissolve
In dust are Nile mud solidified; the red
pottery of Assiut is Nile mud baked hard ;
the village mosques and minarets are
Nile mud whitewashed. ! have even
seen ships bulwarks neatly repaired
with mud. Ii peryades the whole land,
when wet, as mud undisguised; when
Try, as duststorm. Magazine