CHAPTER FOUR
NATURE'S UNEQUAL DISTRIBUTION OF HER GIFTS
Pure, fresh air is free to all of us, for, like an ocean, it surrounds the whole earth. We need pure water just as much as we do pure air, but it is not always easy to get. A large part of the earth is buried beneath water so salt that we cannot use it. Other parts of the earth are so dry that if we venture into them we may die of thirst. The solid land on which we make our homes is not all of the same value. Thousands of square miles are so rocky or so cold or so dry that they support no living thing. Other thousands of miles of the earth have been so favored by Nature that they are fairly alive with every sort of creature.
We say that a country is rich in natural resources when it has an abundance of those things that men need or can make use of for their pleasure and comfort. A country is poor when it has few of these things.
The first men were poor, although they lived in a rich part of the earth. They did not know how to make use of what lay around them. If civilized men are poor now, it is because they have wasted Nature's gifts or because they live in a country upon which she has bestowed little.
When we say that the far North where the Eskimos live is a dreary, desolate region, we mean that it lacks most of those things necessary to make men comfortable and happy. When we read of the life of the wandering Arabs in the desert of Arabia, we think of a country to which Nature has not given its share.
When we speak of Spain as poor, we have in mind a country once favored by Nature, but no longer prosperous because its resources have been wasted. Our own land is now rich and prosperous because of the abundance of its natural resources. We should guard these well lest we meet a fate similar to that of the people of Spain.
H. W. Fairbanks
Where Nature has supplied little rain; desert sand dunes.