May Musings
by Herb Wisner

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When do you suppose the following enlightened observations were made?

The human race produces geological changes in several modes:
1. By the destruction of vast numbers of animals and plants to make room for themselves.
2. By aiding in the wide distribution of many animals and plants that accompany man in his migrations.
3. By destroying the equilibrium between conflicting species of animals and plants and thus enabling some species to predominant at the expense of others.
4. By altering the climate of large countries by means of cultivation.
5. By resisting the encroachments of rivers and ocean.
6. By helping to degrade the higher parts of the earth¹s surface.
7. By contributing peculiar fossil relics to the alluvial depositions now going on, on the land and in the sea, such as the skeletons of his own frame, the various productions of his art, numerous gold and silver coins, jewelry, cannon balls, etc, that sink to the bottom of the ocean in shipwrecks, or become otherwise entombed.

A quote from Edward Hitchcock¹s Elementary Geology, published in 1847. It would appear that we are a nation of slow learners.

Herb Wisner

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