The End of the World.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXII, Issue 42775, 7 September 1905, Page 2

The End of the World.

SHALL WE ALL DIE OF THIRST ?

The “ end of the world ” in all its bearings has ever been a subject of great fascination for almost every mind. Even the foretelling of the date of what some suppose will be fin overwhelming cataclysm has given hundreds of people something to worry about. More than this, however, not a few have been at pains to tell us how it will come about. With some fire, with others cold, with yet others an earthquake, and with others various dire calamities are said to be in store. The latest suggestion is that we shall all eventually die of thirst. This is the theme ol J. E. Whitby, writing in Chamber’s Journal: The question as to whether, at the present rate of the increase of the world’s population, there will in the near future be sufficient food, is one with which we are all familiar ; but we console ourselves with the thought that by the time mouths are out of proportion to eatables some chemical compound will replace prosont-day nourishment. It is not merely food alone, however, which is likely to fail us, bur, according to scientists, water; and though r hi» may not strike the man on the black-list, as much to grieve over, the thoughtful will be struck by the trend of certain phenomena which haye been recently brought to notice, and will inquire whether, while we are unable to control t e mysterious laws of nature, some effort caonot be made at least to retard the annihil ition of humanity by thirst. It is well-known nowdays that both in Africa and Asia, and indeed in all the great levels of the world, the waterbeds are drying up. Many lakes well known during the historical age have entirely disappeared, while others are shrinking rapidly, Explorations in Central Asia have proved that for centuries a zone stretching from the east to the south-east of this part of the Czar’s dominions has boen drying up; deserts are gradually spreading ; and reports show tha' it is only in the neighbourhood of mountains, round whose brows vapour con denses and falls for the service of the agriculturist, that irrigation can be carried ou or that life itself can be preserved. The incr ase of population and the modern system of drainage have undoubtedly much to answer for. but a great deal of tiie drought is certainly cau»ed by the rapid destruction of timber on all sides, for trees not only at true raiu-cl >uds bu* preserve tha B’-il. ■ ‘ :

While it is impotis.ble for puny man to c ntrol the geologica ! period through which we are passing, and whose characteristic would be—.according to some—the gradual dLappeatence of water, it max be inquired whether it would not be advisable to that disagreeable moment of a world without water us fur » a possible by the better preservation of t.ur woods and forests and the persistent replanting of trees.