QUOTE : Marsh himself was not interested in power; his language was sober rather than choleric, but his conclusions were equally disturbing. Taking a global view, he remarked that Man has too long forgotten that the earth was given to him for usufruct alone, not for consumption, still less for profligate waste . . . There are parts of Asia Minor, of Northern Africa, of Greece, and even of Alpine Europe, where the operation of causes set in action by man has brought the face of the earth to a desolation almost as complete as that of the moon . . . The earth is fast becoming an unfit home for its noblest inhabitant, and another era of equal human crime and human improvidence . . . would reduce it to such a condition of impoverished productiveness, of shattered surface, of climatic excess, as to threaten the deprivation, barbarism, and perhaps even extinction of the species.