The Earth as Modified by Human Action | Page 2

sea-winds. Man,
therefore, must sometimes resist, sometimes promote, the formation
and growth of dunes, and subject the barren and flying sands to the
same obedience to his will to which he has reduced other forms of
terrestrial surface.
Besides these old and comparatively familiar methods of material
improvement, modern ambition aspires to yet grander achievements in
the conquest of physical nature, and projects are meditated which quite
eclipse the boldest enterprises hitherto undertaken for the modification
of geographical surface.
The natural character of the various fields where human industry has
effected revolutions so important, and where the multiplying
population and the impoverished resources of the globe demand new
triumphs of mind over matter, suggests a corresponding division of the
general subject, and I have conformed the distribution of the several
topics to the chronological succession in which man must be supposed
to have extended his sway over the different provinces of his material
kingdom. I have, then, in the introductory chapter, stated, in a
comprehensive way, the general effects and the prospective
consequences of human action upon the earth's surface and the life
which peoples it. This chapter is followed by four others in which I
have traced the history of man's industry as exerted upon Animal and
Vegetable Life, upon the Woods, upon the Waters, and upon the Sands;
and to these I have added a concluding chapter upon Man.
It is perhaps superfluous to add, what indeed sufficiently appears upon
every page of the volume, that I address myself not to professed

physicists, but to the general intelligence of observing and thinking
men; and that my purpose is rather to make practical suggestions than
to indulge in theoretical speculations more properly suited to a different
class from that for which I write.
GEORGE P. MARSH.
December 1, 1868.

PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION.
In preparing for the press an Italian translation of this work, published
at Florence in 1870, I made numerous corrections in the statement of
both facts and opinions; I incorporated into the text and introduced in
notes a large amount of new data and other illustrative matter; I
attempted to improve the method by differently arranging many of the
minor subdivisions of the chapters; and I suppressed a few passages
which teemed to me superfluous. In the present edition, which is based
on the Italian translation, I have made many further corrections and
changes of arrangement of the original matter; I have rewritten a
considerable portion of the work, and have made, in the text and in
notes, numerous and important additions, founded partly on
observations of my own, partly on those of other students of Physical
Geography, and though my general conclusions remain substantially
the same as those I first announced, yet I think I may claim to have
given greater completeness and a more consequent and logical form to
the whole argument
Since the publication of the original edition, Mr. Elisee Reclus, in the
second volume of his admirable work, La Terre (Paris, 1868), lately
made accessible to English-reading students, has treated, in a general
way, the subject I have undertaken to discuss. He has, however,
occupied himself with the conservative and restorative, rather than with
the destructive, effects of human industry, and he has drawn an
attractive and encouraging picture of the ameliorating influences of the
action of man, and of the compensations by which he, consciously or

unconsciously, makes amends for the deterioration which he has
produced in the medium he inhabits. The labors of Mr. Reclus,
therefore, though aiming at a much higher and wider scope than I have
had in view, are, in this particular point, a complement to my own. I
earnestly recommend the work of this able writer to the attention of my
readers.
George P. Marsh
Rome, May 1, 1878.

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