Cases are known in which great volumes of oil were systematically burned in order to get rid of it.
The prodigal squandering of our mineral fuels proceeds unchecked in the face of the fact that such resources as these, once used or wasted, can never be replaced.

If waste like this were not chiefly thoughtless, it might well be characterized as the deliberate destruction of the Nation's future.
Many fields of iron ore have already been exhausted, and in still more, as in the coal mines, only the higher grades have been taken from the mines, leaving the least valuable beds to be exploited at increased cost or not at all.

Similar waste in the case of other minerals is less serious only because they are less indispensable to our civilization than coal and iron.

Mention should be made of the annual loss of millions of dollars worth of by-products from coke, blast, and other furnaces now thrown into the air, often not merely without benefit but to the serious injury of the community.

In other countries these by-products are saved and used.
We are in the habit of speaking of the solid earth and the eternal hills as though they, at least, were free from the vicissitudes of time and certain to furnish perpetual support for prosperous human life.