The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 72, July 1968 - April, 1969 Page: 122
498 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The photographs in the monograph, which is printed in the attrac-
tive format characteristic of the work of Carl Hertzog, are in them-
selves worth the entire modest purchase price. The monograph is
recommended to aficionados of the Border, the cavalry, and aviation,
or just plain adventure readers.
University of Texas at Arlington E. C. BARKSDALE
The Coming Water Famine. By Jim Wright. New York (Coward-Mc-
Cann, Inc.), 1966. Pp. 255. Index. $5.00.
Two years ago in New York City, a waiter offering diners glasses of
water got a $50 fine for his efforts; shamefaced Hertz and Avis em-
ployees presented unwashed cars to their customers; and Tiffany's dis-
creetly replaced the water in its display window fountain with 84
fifths of the very best gin. With specifics such as these, Jim Wright,
Texas congressman and member of the House Public Works Commit-
tee, nails down his thesis that the United States is headed for a water
crisis, and soon.
The necessity of conserving a fast-dwindling water supply produced
those outlandish incidents in America's largest city. Sophisticated New
Yorkers tiptoed on the edge of panic until their particular water crisis
passed. But that almost unheard-of drought in the East was just one
of many emergencies caused by the growing scarcity of usable water
in the United States. Wright predicts that in a few years every part of
the country will be facing serious water difficulties of some kind.
For many years, droughts and floods were responsible for most water
worries in the United States. Now pollution has become as complex
and seemingly insoluble a problem as some of the industrial wastes
that contribute to it. Wright's. description of the Great Lakes, choking
more each day on millions of tons of these industrial wastes and raw
sewage, is an eye-opener. Southwesterners cannot afford to be smug,
however, for w, have our own specialized pollution problems, he says.
Many southwestern stream bottoms are covered with oil-grime pre-
cipitate. As a result, the streams contain no oxygen and can support
no life.
Wright analyzes needless waste of water and the effect of pollution
on man and marine life; then he catalogs some of the efforts being
made to clean up streams and save water supplies. He devotes part of
his book to a discussion of potential new sources of water: desaliniza-
tion, weather modification, and large-scale movement of water.122
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 72, July 1968 - April, 1969, periodical, 1969; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117146/m1/138/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.