Department of Agriculture, 1916, pp. 107-134.]

MINERAL RESOURCES

Soil, water, and forests are only a few of the rich natural
resources of our country, although they are among the most
important. Great as the mineral production of our country now is,
we have only begun to open the mineral storehouse. On the other
hand, we have been extremely wasteful of some of our minerals, as
in the case of natural gas, oil, and coal. The war has done more,
perhaps, than anything else to open our eyes to our mineral wealth
and to convict us of our wastefulness in the past. In the light of
what it has shown us we should redouble our efforts to conserve
our resources. Our government has been gradually developing a
program of conservation which we should help to make effective. At
the end of this chapter will be found references to interesting
accounts of our national wealth, and of what the government is
doing to conserve it in other directions than those described in
this chapter. Many of these references are to publications issued
by the government itself, which can be obtained for the asking.

Investigate and report on.

Losses in your state from periodic floods. Measures adopted or
proposed to control them.

The by products of coal and of petroleum.

The Forest Service of the Department of Agriculture.