The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-09-28
ANOTHER PREDICTED FAMINE.

crease of population Is bound to bring a time when all the people cannot be fed and something like worldwide starvation Is to be the result. There may come time whom the earth will not be able to supply food for all the people. but that time is far away and we can gain nothing by worrying over it.
 And we have for years been contin- ually warned against timber fam inc. It has been pointed out that the reckless waste of forests that has gone on in the past times will soon ex- haust them and then man must do without wood of any kind. There is something in this prediction, as all of us can see. While 1t is true that surface where the forests are yet un- touched. 1t is plain. or should be, that there must be better care taken of the timber or soon there will be none. This is not at all an unreasonable pre- diction. but in modern times so many substitutes have been used for wood in all forms of building that there Is q wonderful saving of timber. Still. the time may not be far of when there will be no no wood to be had.
 Again, we have been told that the worlds supply of coal will soon be gone. and. with the absence Of wood of all kinds. there will be no fuel. Some of the experts and scientists go so far as to fix an approximately ex- act date. when all the coal will be ex- hausted and then what7 Well. there are two things that may we'll lessen our apprehensions. One Is that all the coal deposits of the earth have not been discovered and operated yet. A great deal of the earth is unkno as that have not only not been explored. but of which no one has dreamed. An other comforting reflection Is that elec- l tricity is so rapidly taking the place of steam as a motive power that the need of coal as fuel is diminishing so rapidly and so generally that the time seems not far distant when there will. be no need of coal or wood as a geli- orator of power. Not only this out it is not at all improbable that the time is not very remote when fuel will not even be required to produce heat We will not only have all the motive pow CT we need, but may also learn to pro- duce heat for all purposes without fuel. The coal may give out, but we see no need of worrying over it.
 But now comes a writer and alarm ist. who tells us that there is to be an iron famine in the near future. He sends out his warning through a Ger man publication. and contemporary thus refers to this and other troubles ahead of us,
 The last grain of coal has been theo- retically mined in year distressingly close enough relationship to tax pres ent day sympathy, and the last leaf on the last tree and the tree itself has been given date for disappearance by the statiStician, at least If we don't mend our ways; and now here Is fgur- ing that rushes the last ton of iron ore out of existence in the year 1870, if everything on the earth and under the earth keeps on at Its present rate.
 Now 1t may be asked, what are we going to do about it7 It will be seen that this new alarmist only gives three-score years as the limit of the iron supply and what is the world to do then? Can we even imagine hu- manity existing in our times without from We must always bear in mind that when this metal has been used and turned into dust or rust, 1t Is gone for ever, and when all the ore has been mined and the metal used. what next?
 There is to be an International Geo. logical Congress in Stockholm, Sweden. next year, and 1t. as we are told by a | contemporary. will have as its chief matter of concern this question of the supply of ore and where 1t is. The | largest known fields are those of Kir- l unavara Luossavara in Sweden. con- 1 taining according to estimate from six to eight hundred million tons of ore barely enough for five years supply. Smaller holdings total up to another ffty-flve years use, and then what. for what iron now does? The figures l take no heed of ore fields that give no promise of at least twenty per cent of pure iron-but there Is always the pos sibility of improved mining methods that shall reduce the cost sufficiently to allow a profit on even so slight proportion of product. The subject Is of great interest-to the scientists only yet but possibly some day to the general public"
 These are gloomy predictions and forecasts, but here again there are two facts that are not properly considered One is that there may yet be discov- cred vast and hitherto unknown depos- it's of iron ore that will add to the sup ply already known. just as new sup