The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-12-31
THE COMING AGE.

Tn the long distant past, when man was comparatively new a the earth. he was an earth-dweller and an earth worker. He lived in caves and made rude pottery of the clay everywhere about him. Later, he learned to work stone and so there was the Stone Age. When it really began or how long 1t lasted the geologists and the antiquar- ians Gan only conjecture, but in all por- tons of the earth where men have liv- ed, there he has left evidences of his patience and skill in hammering and cutting and rubbing the stone into shape. and some of the remains of that early period show that therc were rare workmen on earth in early days.
 But the age of stone passed away or merged into the Age of Bronze, and man learned to fashion swords and spears and many other implements and untensils of war and pea.e out of met al But that again gave way to iron and it's production has increased and its uses multiplied until the present may we'll be called the Iron Age. which also includes steel. The uses of these met als in all the constructive arts has so wonderfully multiplied that it seemed destined to drive out wood and stone, and all other materials. Iron and steel have become powers in the land,
 But 1t now begins to seem that we are to have a veritable age of clay for the future of humanity. Not the clay of the cave-dwellers, or the bricks and some form or variety of cement. Build ing houses and bridges and all other structures of cement blocks has gone forward with such leaps and bounds as to astonish even those who have tried to keep pace with it's movements. From recent editorial in The New York Mail. we copy as follows:
 The cement house is modified yer | sion of the adobe dwelling of the ln- dians of the Southwest. It is the clay | age reasserting itself in novel form |. | In this form indeed that age Is already on the scene, shouldering out the iron | age in a thousand places. America l produced only about million ani a i half barrels of cement in 1s97. Last
  | The supply is practically inexhaustible. | It is claimed for the cement house that | it can be erected in half the time of | another house and at much less ex- l ing and lathing and with the army of metal workers. bricklayers and carpen- ters; that it is a safer insurance risk; 1 that there is nothing about 1t to cor rode and decay, and that it's more plas- tic material is susceptible of decorative effects impossible to anything else.
 Should cement come into the general use that is predicted for 1t the process of human evolution from the simpler to the more complex would be altered. A civilization that looks to it for its walls and roofs could not but be quiet CT than one that rests on the noisy arts of the iron worker, the mason and the carpenter. The houses themselves would become practically part of the earth from which they rear themselves would be attached permanently and immutably to nature. Then would come again in effect the age of the cave map--dweller. however, in cavern with light. running water. open plumb- ing, and ''all modern improvements.'
 It is not to be supposed that clay or cement will take the place of iron and steel all at once, if it ever does. The ages which have succeeded each other in the past history of the world, did so gradually and imperceptibly. One succeeded and merged into the next un- til finally the old was practically lost and the new took its place So it will be with the present. Wood has been giving way to metal in construction work and that in turn may make way for cement. That material is without limit and it's use requires less of skill and mechanical training than dees eith- CT wood or metal, so that Its use will become more %opular and common as time passes It really looks very much as if we may have an Age of | Clay in the not distant future.