enlighten and fructify the remotest corners of the earth."
The Frenchman, glowing with national pride, drunk: "France—the moon whose mild, steady, cheering rays are the delight of all nations; consoling them in darkness and making their dreariness beautiful."
This furnished Franklin with a fine opening, and his quaint humor bubbled over in his retort: "George Washington—the Joshua, who commanded the sun and the moon to stand still and they obeyed him."
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See Life, The Simple.
WASHINGTON'S GENIUS
Brilliant I will not call him, if the brightness
of the rippling river exceed the solemn
glory of old ocean. Brilliant I will not call
him, if darkness must be visible in order to
display the light; for he had none of that
rocket-like brilliancy which flames in instant
coruscation across the black brow of night,
and then is not. But if a steady, unflickering
flame, slow rising to its lofty sphere,
dispensing far and wide its rays, revealing
all things on which it shines in due proportions
and large relations, making right, duty,
and destiny so plain that in the vision we are
scarce conscious of the light—if this be brilliancy,
then the genius of Washington was
as full-orbed and luminous as the god of
day in his zenith.—John W. Daniel.
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Washington's Humility—See Life, The Simple. WASTE Water washes everything, touches everything, impregnates everything. Nothing escapes it. Incessantly, everywhere, whatever it meets, is dissolved and finally deposited in the immense common receptacle of the oceanic basins. This constant washing continually modifies the chemical composition of the earth's surface, and it evidently does so to the detriment of the soil's fertility, since the substances that make a soil fertile are just those that are soluble in water. This general sterilization is masked by local advantages. A valley like that of the Nile, for instance, benefits by the substances brought down from regions nearer its source, but in the long run rivers are always carrying to the sea an enormous quantity of fertilizing material that is lost beyond recall. (Text.)—Paul Combes, Cosmos (Paris).
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Petroleum and natural gas, which are supplements to coal, are subjected to wanton waste. Natural gas is now being wasted at the rate of a billion cubic feet a day, by being blown into the air. In Louisiana great spouting wells of gas are burning in the open atmosphere, doing no good whatever to anybody. It is estimated that there are thus consumed in that State alone seventy million cubic feet per day, more than enough to supply Boston, Baltimore, Washington, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, and Pittsburg. If the present rate of increase of exploitation of high-grade iron-ore continues, the supply will not last more than fifty years. In the not distant future it is certain that we shall be obliged to turn to the lower grade ores, of which the quantity is vastly greater, but the smelting of these ores will make a much heavier draft upon our coal supply. Like coal and iron, the output of copper and zinc has more than doubled during recent decades, and the product of the past ten years is greater than the entire previous history of exploitation of these metals in this country. Each year, not considering loss by fire, we are consuming three and one-half times as much wood as is grown. It is estimated that we allow twenty million acres of forest to be burned over annually. Of the timber we take, from one-fourth to one-half is lost by our wasteful methods of cutting and manufacture. Already within a little more than a century of the life of this nation approximately one-half of our forest products are gone. Our system of taxation of forests encourages rapid cutting rather than conservation. We must reform our tax laws concerning forest products; we must eliminate forest fires; we must use economically the wood cut; we must reduce the total amount used per capita until the growth of one year is equal to the consumption of that year. Our water resources, including water for domestic purposes, for irrigation, for navigation, for power, are enormous. As yet they have been only very partially utilized. Fortunately, the water continues in undiminished quantities, being ever withdrawn from the ocean through the power of the sun, and ever falling upon the land. It is a perpetual resource.—Collier's Weekly.
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WASTE BY DRINK
A man, who had destroyed three happy
homes through his drinking habits, was converted,
and set to work to lead his friends to
