The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1913-01-28
x.
Copyright, 1913, by Herbert
Quick

present quarters, and why they
are crowded SO largely into Eu-
rope, Southern and Eastern Asia,
and Eastern North America. The
basic reason lies in the supply of
potash, nitrates and phosphorus
there in the dust which we call
soil, on the pIanking of the decks.
For where these things occur
Mother Earth has that breaking
out of green rash ON her skin,
called vegetation-and on that
animal life is based. But there
are many regions in which these
elements are plentifully found,
but where the climate fOrbids
successful community life. 1t is
too hot, as i'm the tropics; or too
hot and wet, as i'm the forest des-
erts of Central Africa Or Central
South America; or too hot and
dry, as i'm the Sahara; or too dry
with a good temperature, as in
much of North America; or too
cold, as i'm great deal of Cam
ada, Labrador, Siberia, and pOr-
ton of Russia and Patagonia.
Greenland, Iceland and the un-
known Antarctic Continent are
always frozen.
With the human race so grow
ing in numbers it seems certain
that new lands will have to be
occupied peaceably; or the old,
| fierce game of war and conquest
and extirpation must be resumed.
Tho pnccan0nro ~ III
each other off more than now.
Away off in the unknown wilds
OF eastern Asia, some great brute
of murderer like Genghis Kahn
would arise and assail his fellow
men, using other fellow men as
a weapon and the tribes and ma
lions would begin to be driven
against each other like a row of
falling bricks. The huge CONT
nent would shake with war-and
finally the wave would surge
westward until our ancestors in
Europe would be involved. I'm
der the beating of such waves,
Greece was submerged, and the
Roman Empire went down in
ruins. The Passengers were seek
ing new quarters, that's all. But
now, we seem to have ceased for
while to do this-in their way,
at least. And with the falling
off in murder there is an in
crease in people.
To help on this increase
Science is mastering disease. So
in spite of famine and poverty,
men are SO multiplying that new
quarters will one day be abso-
lutely necessary. The Passengers
are in many places getting too
numerous. In peaceful China and
prolific India, and probably in
some other countries, the limits
of subsistence are already being
pressed upon by sheer force of
numbers. Where is the new land
| for the new billions?
There are two directions in
which the underwriting OF the
future may rove. They are north
and south. In both directions
the climatic conditions are so
rigorous as to have kept men
from multiplying under them to
any great eXtent-for the hot re-
gions of the Airship amidships
and the cold regions at stem and
stern are both sparsely supplied
with Passengers. Where, as in
some densely peOpled tropical re-
gions, this is not true, the conf
munity life is not successful.
Climate! This is the one thing
man has never yet been able to
control. Almost every other
phase of his environments he can
modify. He can cause new and
more useful animals and plaf IS
to supplant the ones Nature gave
the earth. He can annihilate
distance. He can chain the spir-
its of coal. He can harness the
winds and the rivers. But he
has never yet changed climate.
There be those who think that
arid climates grow moister with
the cultivation of the lands, but
such minds are duped. There
does not fall on the average a
drop more moisture on any acre
of our great arid and semi-arid
plains than fell there on the av-
erage before a plow was put into
them. Climate has always been
the master of man.
But will this always be so?
No. Without intending to do so,
man is already affecting the eli
mate of the whole earth. He is
doing this by thing never done
before in the history of the
globe-the burning of coal.
Whenevr a ton of coal is burned,
there passes off into the air a
great many vapors. Among them
is carbOnic acid, or carbon diox-
ide. This is the gas that gath
ers in the well and kills the man
who unwarily goes down to clean
it. 1t passes into the air as a
product of combustion every
where that combustion takes
place, and always has. 1t is
breathed in by the leaves of
plants. 1t is fatal to animal life
IL breathed in too strong q mix
ture, but in the amount usually
found in the air, unless in an I'M
ventilated room, or well, or
mine, IL is not hurtful. The for
est fires, the prairie fires, the
rotting of vegetation. the trans
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