The Oregon daily journal. (Portland, Or.) 1902-1972, January 12, 1908, Page 25, Image 25

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r f avti).i,; vi.r-.Whole. batulattons mM$-.ntoemelted':
- ir, twA or Irues; before $he tbUMte Unei of ilicir thirst. I h
- vi yj' - A v ; . " , ' ;- ' . s a . t &arm must nave occn jraTiiivTTncu nw -
atcful jdom of, universal famine must have ' primeval , dependence npoh
been accomplished, he world of humanity':: luxuriance of the tropics; existing in seeth-
muss nave.'Starvea to aeam i ;
- IVithit i that short interval, according
the eakuhtioniSirWiUhm'-Crookes
' have studied fhbrpughly the problem of the :
. - food supplf of mankind-rail the nitrogen
available' for-the hl'rrvwingT6frcrops' - must'
xaicuiattons universally. accepica as cvrrcci v. ncipiess, in mew cmuviuwn, tu uniity n
'by the governments of the world and By all i construction of the earth anew. ' '. 7 ' . ..
statisticians tih6.r like 'Professor CrookeS. , . Th'u r world-wide 'catastrophe was. im-
r - j nave peen CXnausica. : J. nc seca mat was
jotttt WOUla nave taw as unieriue, as acaa,
"J A ' T Kottoden,' in ICorway, two. lardy, and nose, declared, hef or the British AssoeiatioB in
L : "enterprisingr Danes have; succeeded 1897, with all the impressive weight 'ot his uti-
' .where scotes ".'of Americans and Euro- disputed:'' authoHty,;Vtnatj.tnankipd.:: was .'certain ,
- v .. peana failed Nitrogen is at last taken; ;;to starve in IpSt Unless some means were, found,
from 'the atmosphere at o costf which requires ; and found at once, ,to replace in" the .arable ter--no
matt now Jiving to pay with bia life.the fear ritories the 'millions ..of .tons ;of nitrogen of
, , , . . f ul penalty of his forefathers' extravagance. ' which it has been plundered throughout ; the
J ' Humanity has escaped its self-made doom. thousands of years during which man has lived
- ? Mankind Deed not perish. ; ': ". " ' ' ' cVyic'bylbread. i,' v'ii;'"v:,;, v"-: ' .-' '
, Everince- the discovery of the heat-pro-;; r Left to herself, free to feed her animals as
.ducing properties of coal and its usein trans- ; she bore them and bred them, the grass eaters '
- porta tion and industry and for the mere keep-, ,, limited by the carnivora and the insects swal---
' ing of the spark of life in tb& bodies of men ilowed up by the birds, nature remained eternally
. outside of the troDifcal and Bemi-trooical 6nes. reproductive, eternally sufficient 'for -herself,
, " the world has-been worrying over what(is going
' to happerf wheVthe coalfieldsarb eihiusfed, and
supplies. ' y-."'1 ,J A - - .
physical eyes, how much. they had and how-ttuchJ'v;ToreaMitho'mtrdgeii pauper uations;have '
they were spending.' a. .' . vMfiSi'1
Z . The world has worried, as greatly, over its grain: they grow, i Chile, ; perceiving,; the vast A (?
, supplies of petroleum, of wood, of natural. gas,vvalue of the nitrate beds owned by her neighbor, fii Va ,
' of gold, ;diam6no,. radium, mackerel,"
, robinsof anything and everything in sight, cx- the owners the last drive in the triigegp gendintfs'- Tf
cept the most obvious and the most cssentmL Vl-th'ousahd' of brave Bolivsns hurtling over a -Tv
4 It; did 'not worry over the permanency .f;-i cliff amid tho taunts and gibes of their triumph ,
its food, svpplyi ' ',- - ' . ' -.j v;rant 'ifiurderersA; -,s '
man never once.stopped to. wonder ' what, was Jble defiance of every precept of Christianity, -going
toj happen to 'him when," after centuries; itwon in; consonance with every principte of the "
of his. cruel starvation, faithful mother earth; 'I merciless, law' of. survival. ' ' . n
should turn faithless and, in self -defense, starved Chilo holds 'the-nitrate beds,' and' has built .
J him.'-' -I'ii.-.', t v. . . ;;
ant; properties of I matter, inventor , of . the
famous Crookes tubes, expert on tno Jood prob-
the atmosphere.- above , the earth, 'revered and
' .trusted by the ignorant, placid horde of human-
" .fyr that let its crochets nerishf unless thev ter-
-i'-lcm, of the world, foremost, diagnostician of the jr-: iiyv-f
' " ' already sick; pakjearth n ffflJtrPI
, - wholesale larceny of, its native nitrogen,1 leading , hausted, wth the need for them leaping from 1 1'
- ' experimenter and successful rhemist in the cx- 200,000 tons in 1830 to 100,
v traction: of that' urgently needed nitrogen from ;. vS .Tho-Wiod, of starvation or mankind: be J yWgSjr? tMt '
nfy it into intelligence tnis one man, wno naai? in 185U, only a single generation later,
, eyes in his brain as well as en, both sides of hia f the nitrates of ? Chile will Iiave . beeri
PORTLAND
dot;
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. , noraei oj uvwg sKcustvm, emu.tatcu vj
to their hungerj bloody and scarred from the
wounds of their common conflicts, almost
pending as late at the year just ended; and
i It was as inevitable asjhe, nmjearjhathas
- 'just come, when electrical
icicntc survcu iuc-uyyunni yi vwtm.w.,--
. i iraciinz nurugcn ruin tne umwynci.
Jjuntili, man 'appeared,' apingomnipotence " and
ARisantic in his wastefu
suckling who can be fed only , with itt mother's
.j herself ta; navy from the fruits of her bloody
verting, in the .approaching -chabs of hunger'tox;
v the type:of;the rleistoine; saber-toowied tiger. ,
Winning; in il93t-heU'lhe: maiori
living .today - must be among Ae' predestined r
trinim f thA--wniTPl'tBtrnnKimiWl
for then
11 wm I Mi
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OREGON, SUNDAY; UORNINC . JANUARY !2,: 1903 ;
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exHauated, and the earth's soil ; would he stark ;
dead for lack of the mineral that is its me.
: , But Sir William Orookes was no desperate
alarmist. Years ' before he uttered the timely
call of the wolf 'of famine, he had divined the
coming- of the crisis and had been laboring to
devise the means of defense. -'
He knew, ak all science knew. .that, abova
every square mile of the earth's surface the
atmosphere contained nitrogen enough ,to sup
ply, the needs of agriculture, which is the basis
of all animal life for more Jthart. half a century.
. , All?,. oupAjr wg. ai wwu ua ..m.m.v v
draws her 'deposits by the infinitely small; and :
.'; slow extraction done' by plants is permanently
inexhaustible. Ifanr-ieven man . of ,the modern
orgie . of wastefulness can contemplate the '
Midas riches of the air, and curse because there
is a world beyond his powers" to ruin. : .
- Crookes like Xord Bayleigh,"; had r demon- ."
strated that the chemistry at the command ofi
electricity could condense Lf rom the atmosphere
the nitrogen which is our sole ; bar against
, ' famine. Those men, ; in the quiet, unknown ,
; depths of their laboratories, "were, performing .
.the prime office of science--w'ere finding causes ,'
. and proving possibilities. Others, if heir pow- j
' ers and resources shbuld faU,'"must : contrive- the '
expansion of their methods which . would prove I
;. the efficient means. " ' - ' - ( ; , ' " ' , ,
j;;;The nations felt the fear. Governments, ; .
in; anxious advisings, sought to teach their ;
farming populations the new values of waste
products as fertilizers which .'could, 'in some.,'
measure,,' replace the nitrate their cr. ops - drew i
: from the; weakening acres. V '
? ' Agricultural bureaus - experimented with. ! '
: grasses, like alfalfa, which should give back the
: nitrogen most speedily. , , ' ( . ,i
Ibis did not Happen lar away, or Jong ago. ;
It is happening now, here. And the utter, ab-
olllte failu.ro our Pettifogging apologies to j
. OUtraErcu,' vltuutcu . Jiotiue witu uo utic, uu. ;
One year after Professor Crookes' sent I113
' salutary thrill of dread throughout the civilized ;.
, world,: the manufacture of commercial nitrogen i
from the air was mado generally possillo, al- ;
though it remained commercially unpossible.
, ' 1 Americans with I
characteristic enter- I ' I
priio and heedlessness, i
ru&hed into the field of
manufacture along tlua '
" lines .'declared by , IVo-
; fessor .Crooked to ha
"' practicable' tho titili- '
.'zation'. of'' water power
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