man, animals, plants, and nature's processes. We now know that to continually dump sewage or chemicals into a body of water such as a lake may kill certain small organisms, or animals, which provide food and oxygen for larger animals, and eventually fish, which a person might depend upon for his food or business, It is through examples like this we see that there are "ecological chains" which, if broken, may result in the destruction of the whole chain, Nature, we have observed, "likes" order and balance, Within nature are many “chains™ which complement or supplement ecological patterns. While the first example was how a chain could be disrupted by pollution, or contamination, such a chain can also transmit contamination, factories produce a waste chemical of mercury. a fresh water lake, In some areas, This waste is discharged into The mercury is absorbed into the tissues of the smaller organisms and thus transmitted through the food chain until it reaches man, If the concentrations or amounts of this chemical are large enough, the man may become ill from mercury poisoning. The same sort of thing can happen with radicactive contamination or "pollution," At this point, it would be well to stop for a moment and recall what happens when a nuclear explosion--especially a hydrogen bomb explosion--occurs, If on the surface, the burst will lift up an incredible tonnage of material into the atmosphere, The gassy inferno fireball shoots upward surrounded by vapor and particles which roll and boil around it in a maelstrom of radio- activity and turbulence at the cap of the “mushroom cloud." The lower part of the cloud, or column, contains the heavier particles of material (soil, water vapor, rock) which have been made radioactive, part will be carried away by the winds in the lower atmosphere sphere or zone in which is found most of our weather). 17 This (the Tropo- The heaviest particles