excepted; and his besom of destruction in the uncontrolled hands of a generation has swept into the sea soil fertility which only centuries of life could accumulate, and yet this fertility is the substratum of all that is living. It must be recognized that the phosphate deposits which we are beginning to return to our fields are but measures of fertility lost from older soils, and indices of processes still in progress. The rivers of North America are estimated to carry to the sea more than 500 tons of phosphorus with each cubic mile of water. To such loss modern civilization is adding that of hydraulic sewage disposal through which the waste of five hundred millions of people might be more than 194,300 tons of phosphorus annually, which could not be replaced by 1,295,000 tons of rock phosphate, 75 per cent pure. The Mongolian races, with
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Fig. 108.—Type of conveyance extensively used in Japan for the removal of city and village waste. Such carts are even more frequently drawn by men than by cattle or horses, and tightly covered casks supported on saddles are borne on the backs of both cattle and horses, while men carry pails long distances on their shoulders, using the carrying pole.
