IS THE WORLD WEARING OUT ?

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2769, 12 April 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

IS THE WORLD WEARING OUT ?

Everybody knows that the world is wearing out, says the Chicago News, that the time is coming when we will have no coal and no iron. A close record of the output of the oil fields discovered the fact that the petroleum reservoirs are running dry, and that investors have not the faith in the inexhaustible flow of natural gas that the sellers of wells would wish. We know that the precious metals are dug out in less quantities than formerly ; that the diamond market, in spite of Kimberley, is cornering itself : that the mahogany will one day be a thing of the past, like the buffalo robe and dodo. We arc confronted with the fact that guano deposits will not last for ever, that there is a human limit to the production of electricity, and that our children several times removed will have neither quinine, chloroform, nor aniline dyes. Of course this general exhaustion of old earth's treasure-house .is some time ahead of us. It will not happen in our day nor in the next century. We can go on burning the candle at both ends for a few hundred years before humanity has to adjust itself to the newer or more economical conditions. But despite the fact that the time of stress is so far ahead of us that we can look on jokingly, it is pleasant to learu that science is getting ready for the rainy day. We are on the eve of a new age, aud on the threshold of a new civilisation. Aluminum, accord, ing to Nature, is making ready to take the place of steel, and it will be cheaper, lighter, stronger, and one thousandfold more plentiful and cheap. Its price now puts the new elements in the debatable land between pure chemistry and practicable commerce, and it is a question of time merely when we shall build our telephones and air ships out of the silvery ore of our common clay, instead of heavy and refractory ore. Heat and food according to Science, we are to gather from the sea in proper fish culture and wise electrical work. The economist brightly believes that we will solve the problem before the middle of the liOfch century, and solve it to the satisfaction of both parties.