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DEVOTED TO EVERYTHING AND EVERY i INTEREST CONNECTED OR_ ASSO- _ CIATED WITH MARINE MATTERS ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. | Published every. thubedas by = The Penton Publishing Co. CLEVELAND. BOSTON. Mies ceaeys 2, 1053" Bxchange Bide. PO BUPEALO: .oscscccasecceeeee 932. Wlhcott) oq. EHICAGO sie et reas 1328 Monadnock Blk. CINCINNATI .......First National Bank Bldg. - NEW YORK...........1005 West Street Bldg. foe LOG RURG. 4. sicecswewes snes 510. Park Bla> | DULUTH srecseeceeseeee411 Providence Bldg. oe sv¥iipondence on Marine Engineering, Ship Building and Shipping Subjects Solicited. 'Subscription, U. S. and Mexico, $3. 00 per annum. Canada, $4.00. Foreign, $4.50. | ns Subscribers can have addresses changed at will. Clea tae of advertising copy must reach this : office on Thursday preceding date of publication. The Cleveland News Co. will supply the trade s with the Maring Review through the > regular channels of the American News Co. Hurspeaa. nia The International News pets Company, Breams Building, Chancery Lane, London, E. C., England. "Entered at at the Post Office at Cleveland, Ohio, "as Second Class Matter. "May 21, 1908. OUR NATURAL RESOURCES. held at the White . -House last week to conserve the country's _, The. conference », natural resources will probably be re- garded 'as one of the most far-reaching "movements projected by Theodore Roose- "velt during his strenuous incumbency of _ the presidential office. Conserning our nat- The 'tendency to-.exploit them without regard , ural resources means a great deal. 'to future needs has been general, many men making fabulous fortunes by *beg- "* gearing posterity. Wasteful and extrava- "gant methods have. been employed, fre- quently amounting to .50 per cent of the *, material put into actual use. So rapid 'thas been the destruction that certain of our raw resources are in fair way of be- coming extinct. Extremely prodigal has Deen ' the exploitation of the timber re- Sources of the country, so much so that states, that. were once covered with pine have literally. not a_ stick ' standing. 'Such treatment of a native resource THe Marine REVIEW is criminal, for with judicious man- agement the timber resources of the 'can be made to replenish It must be done, country themselves. ever, before complete denudation takes | rains necessary place, otherwise the to the existence of vegetation will rush off in torrents to the sea instead of seep- ing gradually through the gentle processes of nature into the streams, To this conference President Roosevelt invited the governors of the states, the members of the Inland Waterways Com- 'mission, certain members of both houses of congress and four representative citi- zens chosen at large. These four were Wm. J. Bryan, Andrew Carnegie, James J. Hill and John Mitchell. ; President Roosevelt spoke for 55 min- utes with tremendous earnestness, exhibit- ing great breadth of comprehension and much practical wisdom. Rarely has a man in public office appeared to better advantage, for the conference lay in the fact that the natural resources of the country are in danger of exhaustion if the old wasteful methods of exploiting them aré permitted any longer to continue. The rapid 'pace at which the country is traveling is well exhibited in this remark. It is certainly a striking commentary that a country em- bracing a whole continent and touching upon two oceans should find its once sup- posedly inexhaustible natural resources in danger of exhaustion before it has barely more than completed its first hun- The United ereat as a dred years of national life. States through the lavish use of its resources, has grown nation but the time has come to call a halt and to inquire what will happen when the for- ests are gone and coal, iron, oil and gas are exhausted; when the soils are im- poverished and the fields denuded. The raw resources of the country are divided into two sharply distinguished classes according as they are or are not capable of renewal. The minerals cannot renew themselves, and, therefore, in deal- ing with coal, oil, gas, iron andthe other metals generally conservation must come through . wise 'administration' of» them. Eventual exhaustion cannot be avoided, but it may be delayed. The secdnd 'lass of resources consists of those which can- not only be used in such manner as to leave them undiminished for future gen- how-_ 'reconstruct themselves to be imminent. He stated that the occasion erations, but which can actually be im- proved by use. The soil, the forest, the _ waterways, come within this category. In dealing with the soil and its products, man can improve upon nature by com- pelling the resources to.renew and even in such manner as to derive increasingly beneficial uses, while the living waters can be so con- trolled as to multiply their benefits. The president believes a timber famine He held it to be unpar- donable for the nation or the states to permit any further cutting of timber save in accordance with a system which will provide that the next generations will see the timber increased instead of dimin- ished. Moreover, we can add enormous tracts of the best possible agricultural land to the national domain by irrigation in the arid and semi-arid regions and by' the drainage of great tracts of territory in the humid regions. In discussing the transportation prob- lem the president repeated the language of the announcement in which he created The country can enormously increase its trans- the Inland Waterways Commission. portation system by the canalization of its rivers so as to complete a great sys- tem of waterways on the Pacific, Atlantic and Gulf coasts, and in the Mississippi valley, from the prairies to the Alleghenies and from the great lakes to the Missis- sippi. resources should, however, be co-ordinat- -These various uses of our natural ed and treated as parts of one coherent - plan and not in haphazard and piece-meal fashion. Strikingly important addresses were made by Andrew Carnegie and James J. Hill. Naturally the most interesting tion of Mr. Carnegie's address. would be He directed atten- tion to the enormous expansion in the por- that devoted to iron. uses of iron that have occurred of late years and frankly felt that the deposits of raw material were not equal to main- tain it. He thought that means should be employed to relieve iron of many of the uses to which it is now subject, other- wise the known deposits will be exhaust- ed within half a century. He believed that such relief would come and pointed to' the share of the work now performed by concrete that was! formerly borne by iron. James J. Hill paid great attention ia