A DREARY PROSPECT.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 351, 5 March 1861, Page 4

A DREARY PROSPECT.

The Revu Contemporaine publishes a very curious article, by Baron Ernouf, entitled, "De l'Appauvriesemeut dv Sol ot dcs Moyens d'y Remedier." It is true that, owing to the gradual increase of population, the surface of tbe earth is destined, in the course of ages, to refuse its aliment to the human race, and that a diy will come wben the sun shall shine on an unpeopled and desert globe ? Such is the question asked by the author, of the article—a question started by many eminent men since the commencement of the present century. ,7 ; . ■ ; It is a positive fact that, in consequence of the populous state of many countries which, during the middle ages, 'w<?re but feebly peopled, it bas become impossible to leave a large quantity of land alternately fallow for a certain time, until the soil has regained the phosphoriw which under different forms, it has yielded to the grain so necessary to the susteuance of man. It is equally true that the manure .spread over the fields is insufficient to renew the supply of phosphorus ; and that countries, like Mesopotamia for instance, which in the olden time were remaikable for their fertility, have since been transformed into deserts. Nor can it be'denied that in taking food we absorb an enormous quantity of the fertilizing element, phpsporus, in order to build up and repair our osseous system, which is almost exclusively composed of. phosphate of lime.

Did we, on quittiug this sublunary abode, restore to the earth what we received lrom it, the loss to the community would be comparatively small. But this is what we do not. Our dead are enclosed wit'iin stone vaults or impenet able coffins, and thus, out of filial piety or respect for the dead in general, we are induced to withhold from our mother earth tbat very nutriment wbich she is so much iv want of to feed us, while we multiply in nearly a geometrical ratio, and go oti drawing upon ber resources, until she must be reduced in the end to a state of hopeless barrenness.

And what is then, to become of the human race ? Will it have to live upon fish, or will anthropophagy, be its last rssort ? To these dismal presentiments, the accomplishment oi which we may comfortably view from the convenient distance of many ceuturies, Baron Ernouf replies by pointing; out tbat from the moment chemists discovered that the great agent

of fertilization is phosphorus under variou9 forms, the problem may be considered in a great solved, since it is reduced to the simple condition of providing that great agent. Among the chief remedies against any deficiency in the natural supply, there are the importance of guano and the application of mineral phosphates to agricultural purposes; and, before these fail other sources will undoubtedly be discovered by science.

To these reflections of our author, we may add that increase of population is invariably regu!a ed by the means of existence, and that, whenever there is any danger of an excess of the former, nature applies a corrective in the form of some pestilence or other great calamity —even when men themselves do not. following tbeir instincts, either destroy each other it battle, or drain off the surplus by emigration. These, history itself shows, are quite as natural checks (though apparently of a pulitiodl nature) as those alluded to which are iudependeut of our will.