MAN AND NATURE. 259 



bility, their want of fixedness, not in form only, but even in 

 spirit. The face of physical nature in the United States 

 shares, this incessant fluctuation, and the landscape is as 

 variable as the habits of the population. It is time for some 

 abatement in the restless love of change which characterises 

 us, and makes us rather a nomade than a sedentary people. 

 ... It is rare that a middle-aged American dies in the 

 house where he was born, or an old man even in that which 

 he has built ; and this is scarcely less true of the rural dis- 

 tricts, where every man owns his habitation, than of the city, 

 where the majority live in hired houses. This life of inces- 

 sant flitting is unfavourable for the execution of permanent 

 improvements of every sort, and especially of those which, 

 like the forest, are slow in repaying the capital expended on 

 them. It requires a very generous spirit in a landholder to 

 plant a wood or a farm he expects to sell, or which he knows 

 will pass out of the hands of his descendants at his death. 



The general comments we have made on Mr. 

 Marsh's work will show that it is one difficult to 

 analyse in detail. We may better serve our readers 

 by bringing before them our own more succinct view 

 of the great questions, it touches upon, and the con- 

 clusions which have been reached, or are yet before us 

 for attainment. To superficial enquirers it may seem 

 a matter of simple and easy evidence to denote the 

 changes and conditions of the earth's surface which are 

 due to human agency. But this is far from being the 

 case. Many collateral questions and issues enter into 

 the problem, and the objects of enquiry are so many 

 and so complex that it is often exceedingly difficult to 

 disengage the truth. If any preliminary proof of this 

 were needed, it might be found in the consideration 

 that man has a double faculty allotted to him on the 



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