The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-20
From the Boston Globe.

From the Boston Globe.
 PEAKERS at the governors con- @C ference have performed a Valu. 4 " able service by explaining the urgent necessity for the conservation or forests. the improvement of rivers, the reclamation of land, the systemizaton or water transportation and for Kindred in,- provements. The people of this country for many years have listened to bomoastic speeches concerning the unlimited extent of our natural resources, but little has been said in regard to the tremendous waste of those resources or concerning how short a time. comparatively they can be depended on to further enrich the country.
 Now. it is apparent to painstaking in- vestigators that it Is necessary for more thought to be given to prevent the alarm ing waste of many of the most important natural resources, in order that future generations may not be hampered by lack of those very things which have con- tributed heretofore to the prosperity of America
 Two things which have served largely to build up American industries are coal and iron.
 It is unsatisfactory to learn that the mammoth deposits of coal which the United States contained a century ago have been so handled that the amount wasted and destroyed has exceeded tho amount actually consumed. And in the consumption of coal there has also been an astonishing waste. On this point MT. Andrew Carnegie says:
 'Of all the coal burned in the power
 plants of the country. not more than from to 10 per cent of the potential energy is actually used; the remaining 90 to 95 per cent Is absorbed in rendering the smaller fraction available in actual
 work. In direct heating the loss is less,
 but in electric heating and lighting 1t IS
 much more-indeed in ordinary electric light plants hardly one-fifth of per cent, one five-hundredth part, of the energy or the coal is actually utilized. There is at present no known remedy for this. These wastes are not increasing; for tunately, through the development or gas-producers, internal-combustion en- zines and steam turbines they are con stantly decreasing; yet not so rapidly as to affect seriously the estimates of increase in coal consumption. We ara not without hope, however, of discov- cries that may yet enable man to con vert potential into mechanical energy direct avoiding this fearful waste. If l that day ever comes, our coal supply might be considered intending" '.There must be close attention also | to the future supply of iron ore. By the year 1888 1t is estimated that half the original supply will have been used and then only the lower grades of ore will remain. Beside, all the ore now deemed workable will be used long befora the end of the present century. | Estimates of the present stock of iron | ore in this country are: For tht Lake Su-
 perior district about 1,5OO, 900 tons; for 1 the southern district dncluding Alabama, 1 Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia), about l 250o, ,OOO, 900 tons, and for the rest of tha United States 5,oO0, 100000 to 7,OO0, GOO, ,0OC tons-making an aggregate of about 1O,OO0.- ] OO0 600 tons.-- There is naturally a great deal of waste 1 due to mining methods. Some of this | is unavoidable, but after the products are | secured there is more waste, considerable of which through invention should in time t,be prevented.