Los Angeles herald., 1907-10-09
MILLIONS
IN WASTE
CONSERVE RESOURCES, CRY OF
EXPERT
J. A. Holmes of Geological Survey,
After Tour of Country, Declares
Question Is of Tremendous
Importance

WASHINGTON, D. c., Oct. S.-That the
present prodigious waste of the nations s
natural resources must stop at once if we
are to continue to prosper is the warning
given to the people of the United States
by j. A. Holmes, chief of the technologlc
branch of the United States geological
survey, who has just returned to WASH
ington after a three months inspection
trip through the west. Mr.. Holmes, who
is an expert on fuels and one of the best
known scientists in the country, toured
the entire west at the instance Of the
government to learn just how serious the
conditions are.
He returns with the statement that in
the mining operations of the present
time nearly one-half of the total coal
supply is being left under ground; that
water, the most valuable of all mineral
resources as source of power, is being
wasted day after day and year after year
to the extent of millions of horse power,
and that forest fires have burned more
lumber than has been used in the build
ing of homes or in the industries.
"One of the great national problems is
the conserving of the fuel resources .
says Mr.. Holmes. "At the present rate
of increase in consumption the better part
of the fuel supply of the country will be
gone by the end of the present century,
unless the proper steps are taken.
Cheap Fuel Vital
"The future ascendancy Of American
industries will depend largely on our man
ufacturers being able to secure cheap
fuel. The value and cost of labor will
never be reduced in the United States to
what they are in foreign countries, but
this fact renders all the more essential, in
the struggle for industrial and CONNER
cial supremacy, that the manufacturers
of this country be able to obtain fuel
supplies cheaper than they are to be had
in other countries.
"The world recognizes Americans as
the most wasteful of peoples in the util-
ization of, their resources. Certainly no
nation received so rich an inheritance as
did the United States in its combination
of soil and forest and climate and streams
and mineral resources.
1.-THE nation has literally grown up in
luxury. Out of the very abundance of
these resources we have developed an
Indifference to economy and the habit of
waste We have destroyed our game for
its hides and horns; our forests for their
tan bark or pittance of the lumber
they would yield; and meanwhile with a
thoughtless Indifference. we have allowed
the forest fires to burn more lumber than
we have used in the building of homes
or in the industries.
Destroying Value
Meanwhile Through the destruction OF
the forests about the sources of import
ant streams and the improper cultivation
of these sloping lands, the fertile soils
are washed away from the fields, where
they are needed and deposited in the
streams and harbors of the country from
which their continued removal will cost
an enormous sum. We are thus grad
ually but surely destroying the value OF
our great water resources for power for
irrigation and for navigation purposes
This fertile soil and genial climate have
furnished good enough for the nation and
to spare; and so luxurious are the habits
developed by this overproduction of food
that it is sometimes said we waste food
enough to supply another nation as large
as our own.
Water, the most valuable Of all our
mineral resources as source of power,
is being wasted wantonly AS the es-
sential factor in all Irrigation work. 1t
is being wasted by use to excess in many
instances; but on a much. larger scale
and to the value of hundreds of millions
of dollars 1t Is being allowed to go to
waste year after year by not being used