The Invention of Nature

Chapter 21: Man and Nature

1

Marsh arrived in Vermont: Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 3 June 1859, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.410.

2

Humboldt Commemorations, 2 June 1859:

Journal of the American Geographical and Statistical Society

, vol.1, no.8, October 1859, pp.225–46; for Marsh’s membership, see vol.1, no.1, January 1859, p.iii.

3

‘dullest owl in’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 26 August 1859, UVM.

4

Marsh’s finances: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 25 April 1859; Marsh to Francis Lieber, May 1860, Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp.405–6, 417; Lowenthal 2003, p.154ff.

5

Marsh’s work summer 1859: Lowenthal 2003, p.199.

6

‘like an escaped convict’: Marsh to Caroline Marsh, 26 July 1859, ibid.

7

‘with all my might’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 26 August 1859, UVM.

8

Marsh’s AH books: Lowenthal 2003, p.64; Marsh owned the 1849 German edition of the extended

Views of Nature

, several volumes of

Cosmos

(also in German) as well as a biography and other books about Humboldt. He had also read

Personal Narrative

, see Marsh 1892 pp.333–4; Marsh 1864, pp.91, 176.

9

‘done more to extend’: Marsh, ‘Speech of Mr. Marsh, of Vermont, on the Bill for Establishing The Smithsonian Institution, Delivered in the House of Representatives’, 22 April 1846, Marsh 1846.

10

‘infinite superiority’: Ibid.; for Germans and German books: Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.90–1, 100, 103; Lowenthal 2003, p.90

11

sister-in-law’s husband: Caroline Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 15 February 1850, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.161.

12

fluent in twenty languages: Lowenthal 2003, p.49.

13

‘Dutch … can be learned’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 10 October 1848, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.128.

14

Marsh used German words: Marsh to Caroline Escourt, 10 June 1848; Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 15 September 1848; Marsh to Caroline Marsh, 4 October 1858, Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp. 123, 127, 400.

15

‘greatest of the priesthood’: Marsh, ‘The Study of Nature’,

Christian Examiner

, 1860, Marsh 2001, p.83.

16

‘walking encyclopaedia’: George W. Wurts to Caroline Marsh, 1 October 1884; for his childhood and reading habits, Lowenthal 2003, pp.11ff., 18–19, 374; Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp.38, 103.

17

‘forest–born’: Marsh to Charles Eliot Norton, 24 May 1871, Lowenthal 2003, p.19.

18

‘I spent my early’: Marsh to Asa Gray, 9 May 1849, UVM.

19

Marsh hated clients: Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.40; Lowenthal 2003, p.35.

20

disliked teaching: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 25 April 1859, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.406.

21

Marsh unsuccessful: Lowenthal 2003, pp.35, 41–2.

22

‘entirely without oratorical’: Caroline Marsh about Marsh, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.64.

23

‘If you live much’: James Melville Gilliss to Marsh, 17 September 1857, Lowenthal 2003, p.167.

24

diplomatic posting: Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.133ff.; Lowenthal 2003, p.105.

25

‘a state of fearful’: Marsh to C.S. Davies, 23 March 1849, Lowenthal 2003, p.106.

26

American Minister to Turkey: Lowenthal 2003, pp.106–7, 117; Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.136.

27

tasks ‘very light’: Marsh to James B. Estcourt, 22 October 1849, Lowenthal 2003, p.107.

28

Caroline and Marsh: Lowenthal 2003, pp.46, 377ff; Caroline Marsh, 1 and 12 April 1862, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, pp.151, 153.

29

female emancipation: Lowenthal 2003, p.381ff.

30

‘brilliant talker’: Cornelia Undewood to Levi Underwood, 5 December 1873, Lowenthal 2003, p.378.

31

‘old owl’ and ‘a croaker’: Marsh to Hiram Powers, 31 March 1863, ibid.

32

Caroline Marsh’s ill health: Lowenthal 2003, pp.47, 92, 378.

33

illness ‘incurable’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 6 July 1859, UVM.

34

Marsh carried Caroline: Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 19 April 1851, Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp.219.

35

Nile expedition: Marsh to Lyndon Marsh, 10 February 1851; Marsh to Frederick Wislizenus, 10 February 1851; Marsh to H.A. Holmes, 25 February 1851; Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 28 March 1851, Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp.205, 208, 211ff.

36

‘fresh from the Desert’: Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 28 March 1851, ibid. p.213.

37

‘very earth’: Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 28 March 1851, ibid., p.215.

38

‘I should like to know’: Ibid.

39

‘subdued by long’: Marsh to Frederick Wislizenus and Lucy Crane Frederick Wislizenus, 10 February 1851, ibid., p.206.

40

‘restless activity’: AH Aspects 1849, vol.2, p.11; AH Views 2014, p.158; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.2, p.13.

41

‘political and moral’: AH Plant Geography 2009, p.73.

42

‘wherever he stepped’: AH, 10 March 1801, AH Diary 2003, vol.1, p.44; for AH on deforestation in Cuba and Mexico, see AH Cuba 2011, p.115; AH New Spain 1811, vol.3, pp.251–2.

43

‘How I envy your’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 3 May 1851, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.223.

44

‘a student of nature’: Marsh to American Consul-General in Cairo, 2 June 1851, ibid., p.226.

45

‘Scorpions are not yet’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 23 August 1850, ibid., p.172.

46

‘and all else’: Spencer Fullerton Baird to Marsh, 9 February 1851; see also 9 August 1849 and 10 March 1851, UVM.

47

‘Trust nothing to the’: Marsh 1856, p.160; Lowenthal 2003, pp.130–31.

48

‘most part barren’: Marsh to Caroline and James B. Estcourt, 18 June 1851; for travels in 1851, see Marsh to Susan Perkins Marsh, 16 June 1851, Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp. 227–32, 238; Lowenthal 2003, pp.127–9.

49

‘assiduous husbandry’: Marsh to Caroline Estcourt, 28 March 1851, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.215; see also Marsh, ‘The Study of Nature’,

Christian Examiner

, 1860, Marsh 2001, p.86.

50

‘nature in the shorn’: Marsh 1857, p.11.

51

‘Man is everywhere’: Marsh 1864, p.36.

52

all the forests’: Ibid., p.234.

53

US agriculture and manufacture: Johnson 1999, pp.361, 531.

54

Marsh began

Man and Nature

: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 10, 16 and 21 May 1860, Marsh 1888, vol.1, pp.420–22.

55

raising Chicago:

Chicago Daily Tribune

, 26 January 1858, 7 February 1866.

56

empty rivers and lakes: Marsh 1857, pp.12–15; Marsh 1864, pp.107–8.

57

statistics on fish and timber: Marsh 1864, pp.106, 251–7.

58

cash crops: Ibid., p.278.

59

size of fields for meat diet: Ibid., pp.277–8.

60

‘small duties & large’: Marsh to Francis Lieber, 12 April 1860; for Marsh’s finances, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.362; Lowenthal 2003, pp.155ff., 199.

61

‘I wish I was 30 years’: Marsh to Francis Lieber, 3 June 1859, UVM.

62

‘I could not survive’: Marsh to Charles D. Drake, 1 April 1861, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.429.

63

preparations for Italy: Lowenthal 2003, p.219.

64

Marsh’s speech at Burlington: Benedict 1888, vol.1, pp.20–21.

65

Marsh departure from US: Lowenthal 2003, p.219; they arrived in Turin on 7 June 1861, see Caroline Marsh, 7 June 1861, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, p.1.

66

Marsh, Garibaldi, Union forces: Lowenthal 2003, p.238ff.

67

Marsh and Riscasoli: Caroline Marsh, winter 1861, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, p.71.

68

‘I have been entirely disappointed’: Marsh to Henry and Maria Buell Hickok, 14 January 1862; Marsh to William H. Seward, 12 May 1864, Lowenthal 2003, p.252; see also Caroline Marsh, 17 September 1861, 5 January 1862, 26 December 1862, 17 January 1863, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, pp.43, 94, 99, 107.

69

excursions: Caroline Marsh, 15 February, 25 March 1862, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, pp.128, 148.

70

‘ice-mad’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 21 November 1864, UVM.

71

‘I am not a bad climber’: Ibid.

72

‘We stole an hour’: Caroline Marsh, 10 March 1862; see also 11 March, 24 March and 1 April 1862, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, pp.143–4, 148, 151.

73

‘a crime’ against nature: Caroline Marsh, 7 April 1862, ibid., p.157.

74

writing

Man and Nature

: Caroline Marsh, 14 April 1862 and 2 April 1863, ibid., pp.154, 217; Lowenthal 2003, pp.270–73; see also Marsh to Charles Eliot Norton, 17 October 1863, UVM.

75

‘rather knocked out’: Caroline Marsh, 1 April 1862, Caroline Marsh Journal, NYPL, p.151.

76

commit a ‘libricide’: Caroline about Marsh, Lowenthal 2003, p.272.

77

‘I do this’: Marsh to Charles Eliot Norton, 17 October 1863, UVM.

78

‘Man the Disturber’: Charles Scribner to Marsh, 7 July 1863; Marsh to Charles Scribner 10 September 1863, Marsh 1864, p.xxviii.

79

‘I shall steal’: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 21 May 1860, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.422.

80

Marsh references to AH: Marsh 1864, pp.13–14, 68, 75, 91,128, 145, 175ff.

81

man’s interference with nature: For hats and beavers, see Marsh 1864, pp.76–7; birds and insects, pp.34, 39, 79ff.; wolves, p.76; Boston aqueduct, p.92.

82

‘All nature is linked’: Ibid., p.96.

83

for ‘consumption’: Ibid., p.36.

84

extinction of animals and plants: Ibid., pp.64ff., 77ff., 96ff.

85

‘arid desert’ (footnote): AH, 4 March 1800, AH Diary 2000, p.217; AH Personal Narrative 1814–29, vol.4, p.154.

86

irrigation: Marsh 1864, pp.322, 324.

87

‘shattered surface’: Marsh 1864, Ibid., p.43.

88

Marsh on European landscape: Marsh to Spencer Fullerton Baird, 23 August 1850, July 1852, Marsh 1888, vol.1, p.174, 280; Marsh 1864, p.9, 19.

89

‘a desolation almost’: Marsh 1864, p.42.

90

Roman Empire: Marsh, ‘Oration before the New Hampshire State Agricultural Society’, 10 October 1856, Marsh 2001, pp.36–7; Lowenthal 2003, p.x; Marsh 1864, p.xxiv.

91

‘Let us be wise’: Marsh 1864, p.198.

92

‘We can never know’: Ibid., pp.91–2; see also p110.

93

‘

homo sapiens Europae’:

Ibid., p.46.

94

Madison and AH: AH sent his books to Madison; see David Warden to James Madison, 2 December 1811, Madison Papers PS, vol.4, p.48; Madison to AH, 30 November 1830, Terra 1959, p.799.

95

Madison’s speech: Madison, Address to the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, 12 May 1818, Madison Papers RS, vol.1, pp.260–83; Wulf 2011, p.204ff.

96

Bolívar’s decree: Bolívar, Decree, 19 December 1825, Bolívar 2009, p.258.

97

‘Measures for the Protection’: Bolívar, Measures for the Protection and Wise Use of the National Forests, 31 July 1829, Bolívar 2003, pp.199–200.

98

AH and quinine harvest: AH Aspects 1849, vol.2, p.268; AH Views 2014, p.268; AH Ansichten 1849, vol.2, p.319; AH, 23–28 July 1802, AH Diary 2003, vol.2, pp.126–30.

99

Bolívar and tree removal (footnote): Bolívar, Decree, 31 July 1829, Bolívar 2009, p.351; O’Leary 1879–8, vol.2, p.363.

100 ‘In Wildness is the’: Thoreau, ‘Walking’, 1862 (first delivered as lecture in April 1851), Thoreau Excursion and Poems 1906, p.224.

101 ‘inalienable forever’: Thoreau, 15 October 1859, Thoreau Journal 1906, vol.12, p.387.

102 ‘national preserves’: Thoreau Maine Woods 1906, p.173.

103 ‘Humboldt was the great’: Marsh, ‘The Study of Nature’, Christian Examiner, 1860, Marsh 2001, p.82.

104 references to AH in Man and Nature: Marsh 1864, pp.13–14, 68, 75, 91, 128, 145, 175ff.

105 evils of deforestation: Ibid., pp.128, 131, 137, 145, 154, 171, 180, 186–8.

106 ‘thus the earth is’: Ibid., p.187.

107 ‘We are … breaking up’: Ibid., p.52; for damage like earthquake, p.226.

108 ‘Prompt measures’: Ibid., pp.201–2.

109 ‘inalienable property’: Ibid., p.203; for replanting forests, pp.259ff., 269–80, 325.

110 ‘We have now felled’: Ibid., p.280.

111 ‘Earth is fast’: Ibid., p.43.

112 ‘rudest kick’: Wallace Stegner, in ibid., p.xvi.

113 Marsh’s donation of copyright (footnote): Lowenthal 2003, p.302.

114 ‘epoch-making’: Gifford Pinchot, ibid., p.304; Gifford Pinchot to Mary Pinchot, 21 March 1886, Miller 2001, p.392; for John Muir, see Wolfe 1946, p.83.

115 1873 Timber Culture Act: Lowenthal 2003, p.xi.

116 ‘along the slope’: Hugh Cleghorn to Marsh, 6 Marsh 1868; for influence of Man and Nature worldwide, see Lowenthal 2003, pp.303–5.

117 ‘the fountainhead of’: Mumford 1931, p.78.

118 ‘The future … is more uncertain’: Marsh 1861, p.637.