CHAPTER XXVIII 

 THE EFFAGEMENT OF NATURE BY MAN 



VERY few people have any idea of the extent to 

 which man since his upgrowth in the late Tertiary 

 period of the geologists — perhaps a million years ago — 

 has actively modified the face of Nature, the vast herds 

 of animals he has destroyed, the forests he has burnt up, 

 the deserts he has produced, and the rivers he has 

 polluted. It is, no doubt, true that changes proceeded, 

 and are proceeding, in the form of the earth's face and in 

 its climate without man having anything to say in the 

 matter. Changes in climate and in the connections of 

 islands and continents across great seas and oceans have 

 gone on, and are going on, and in consequence endless 

 kinds of animals and plants have been, some extin- 

 guished, some forced to migrate to new areas, many 

 slowly modified in shape, size, and character, and abun- 

 dantly produced. But over and above these slow irresis- 

 tible changes there has been a vast destruction and 

 defacement of the living world by the uncalculating 

 reckless procedure of both savage and civilised man 

 which is little short of appalling, and is all the more 

 ghastly in that the results have been very rapidly brought 

 about, that no compensatory production of new life, 

 except that of man himself and his distorted " breeds " of 

 domesticated animals, has accompanied the destruction 

 of formerly flourishing creatures, and that, so far as we 



