Page:The Preservation of Places of Interest or Beauty, 1907.djvu/12

 gorge in Somersetshire, known as Cheddar Cliffs—a Dovedale without a river—is being recklessly disfigured by quarrying, and that, not to furnish any rare or valuable stone for building or other important uses, but merely to supply second-rate road-metal. An even more startling instance is the spoliation of the gorge of the Avon through which Bristol is approached from the sea, a spoliation perpetrated by the natural guardians of the place, the Corporation of Bristol. Again, as in the case of the Falls of Foyers, water which has tumbled for ages over steep rocks in a setting of tree and bush and fern, may be quietly abstracted and carried in pipes to some neighbouring factory.

Mr. Wells, in his recent book on America, contemplates with some satisfaction the ultimate destruction of Niagara, after this fashion! With his pride in the silent, swift-moving dynamos, which make the stupendous power of the rushing water the servant of man, we can all sympathise; but surely some way may be found of utilizing natural forces without marring and defacing the grandeur of their wild working! It is just here that danger to places of Beauty and Interest lies. Man is in a hurry to use land and water, and all that the land carries, for the wants of each successive generation. In the exercise of power, in the furtherance of the subjection of nature to his rule, he has often the impatience and thoughtlessness of a child, and will ruthlessly destroy beauty of appearance and association, which, with a little care, might well be preserved without prejudice to the utilitarian aims of to-day. Let me give an illustration in an analogous subject-matter. The engineers and promoters of railways formerly carried their lines through common lands, because they were cheaper to buy, and utterly disregarded the injury inflicted on the rural economy of the district in respect of the turn-out of stock, and on the public in respect of the amenities and enjoyment