NATURE AND MAN—WANT OP FACTS. 
9 
torical research by any scientific inquirer.* Indeed, until the 
influence of physical geography upon human life was recog¬ 
nized as a distinct branch of philosophical investigation, there 
was no motive for the pursuit of such speculations ; and it was 
desirable to inquire whether we have or can become the archi¬ 
tects of our own abiding place, only when it was known how 
the mode of our physical, moral, and intellectual being is 
affected by the character of the home which Providence has 
appointed, and we have fashioned, for our material habitation.f 
It is still too early to attempt scientific method in discuss¬ 
ing this problem, nor is our present store of the necessary facts 
by any means complete enough to warrant me in promising 
any approach to fulness of statement respecting them. Sys¬ 
tematic observation in relation to this subject has hardly yet 
begun ,\ and the scattered data which have chanced to be 
recorded have never been collected. It has now no place in 
the general scheme of physical science, and is matter of sug- 
* The subject of climatic change, with and without reference to human 
action as a cause, has been much discussed by Moreau de Jonnes, Dureau 
de la Malle, Arago, Humboldt, Fuster, Gasparin, Becquerel, and many 
other writers in Europe, and by Hoah Webster, Forry, Drake, and others 
in America. Fraas has endeavored to show, by the history of vegetation 
in Greece, not merely that clearing and cultivation have affected climate, 
but that change of climate has essentially modified the character of vege¬ 
table life. See his Klima und Pflanzenwelt in der Zeit. 
t Gods Almagt wenkte van den troon, 
En schiep elk volk een land ter woon : 
Hier vestte Zij een grondgebied, 
Dat Zij ons zelven scheppen liet. 
I The udometric measurements of Belgrand, reported in the Annates 
Forestieres for 1854, and discussed by Valles in chap, vi of his Etudes 
8ur les Inondations , constitute the earliest, and, in some respects, the most 
remarkable series known to me, of persevering and systematic observa¬ 
tions bearing directly and exclusively upon the influence of human action 
on climate, or, to speak more accurately, on precipitation and natural 
drainage. The conclusions of Belgrand, however, and of Vall&s, who 
adopts them, have not been generally accepted by the scientific world, and 
they seem to have been, in part at least, refuted by the arguments of Heri- 
court and the observations of Cantegril, Jeandel, and Belland. See chapter 
iii: The Woods. 
