Man and the earth

Preface

IN this book I have endeavored to set forth certain reasons why there should be a change in the point of view from which we commonly regard the resources of the earth. As a teacher of Geology, I have seen that there is a complete lack of understanding in our communities as to the duty we owe to our successors in their use of these limited resources. In this regard our conduct is like that of children who take the good that comes to them with no thought of the hereafter. This attitude of men as regards the future of the material values of the earth notably contrasts with that they hold to the moral and political future of their kind. A large part of their thought and endeavor goes to that group of problems, but practically none at all to the immediate questions that relate to the material foundations on which all the higher development of the life of their kind has to rest. It is with some hope of directing attention to this neglected field of inquiry that I have written this book.

It will, perhaps, be noted that the statements concerning the mineral and other material resources of the earth are not supported by statistics set forth in

VI these pages. They thus lack the apparent authority which such a presentation would have given them. It would have been a matter of no great difficulty to have carried out my original plan and to have filled many pages with such matter. The truth is, however, that although the earth’s stores of value to men can be estimated in general terms there is as yet no sufficient basis for accurate quantitative reckonings. Thus while we can clearly foresee that the store of coal is certain to be so far exhausted within two or three centuries that it will have no considerable place in the arts, we cannot estimate the amount of this fuel with anything like statistical accuracy. Thus it is that the statements in this book should be taken as the judgments of an observer who has endeavored to inform himself as to the resources of the earth of value to men, who is confident that in the general terms in which these opinions are stated they have value as guides to conduct.

Several of the chapters of this book, in all about one-fourth of the whole, have been published in the “ International Quarterly.” I am indebted to Mr. Richardson, the editor of that journal, for permission to repeat them substantially in the form in which they there appeared.

Cambridge, Mass.

October , 1905.

N. S. S.

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