The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-23
ONE OF THESE DAYS AIR WILL Be SOLD

Written for the Sunday Standard.
The time has come when we must
live without air, Or, rather, that being
a physical impossibility, we must learn
to manufacture the air necessary to
support life, just as we make bread.
Free as the air we breathe will some
day become an out-of-date expression,
for air will then be no longer free, but
must be bought or toiled for just as
flour is now. Those who will not work
for their daily air supply and who can
not afford to buy it will perish, for ma
ture will have exhausted her supply IN
those changed times. Science predicts
it, but while giving warning of the
coming exhaustion of air science holds
out hope of survival of the human race
even in such a dreadful hour as that in
which the last of the free oxygen IN
the atmosphere has been used up. The
remedy of science is simple one.
When there is no air left. air must be
manufactured. The artificial air will
stored up in great reservoirs and to
these receptacles will come the appli
cants for the supply of oxygen, which
will be carried home and doled out to
the family as part of the days means
to support life. The manufactured oXy-
gen will be breathed in as a diver in
hales the air supplied him when he
sinks beneath the waves. In fact, man
will be as much at home in those days
in the water as in the air, for in neither
elements will be able to breathe. Died
of lack of air" will be a common YER
dict. mo money, no air" will be the
rule of life unless by that time things
have changed SO that would now have
to be paid for will then be given away.
With the discovery that the oxygen
of the air will one day be exhausted,
scientists have dropped the discussion
on the length of time the coal supply
of the world will last. 1t is asserted
with startling emphasis that the air
will give out first. and there is no need
to discuss the coal supply when there
will be no living beings left on the used
up earth. President Meers of the Rose
Polytechnic institute, Terre Haute,
Ind, who has made an especial study
of this great question, goes deeply into
the matter from the standpoint of
science, showing how the burning of
one ton of coal consumes three tons of
oxygen, and at this ratio. unless some
other means can be found of obtaining
power long before the worlds coal sup
ply has been used as fuel we shall have
burned up all the oxygen that gives
life to the fire. The following is Presi-
dent Meer's signed statement on this
interesting subject:
Professor Meers' Statement
Lord Kelvin perhaps is the shreWdest
gueSser in speculative science that the
world has ever known. In the total
quantity of combustbles in the world
he has certainly presented some very
pretty speculations. The subject OF the
amount of available fuel in the world
is a live question with engineers. They
are seeking a direction III which they
may turn to look for new sources of
power. They realize that the present
sources of our energy are not without
limit. Governments have begun to re-
aliZe this condition. Such an enor-
NOUS amount of fuel is used to release
stored-up energy that government COM
missions have been appointed to as
certain as nearly as practicable the
total existing amount of available fuel
in the world.
In the middle of the century a Brit
ish commission gave the opinion that
Great Britain would be entirely without
coal in a little more than 100 years. A
later commission, appointed in 1860,
came to the conclusion that the supply
of coal above the depth of 1000 feet
would last 212 years. No account was
taken of the coal below 1000 feet, as it
was estimated that an amount of en-