Elisée Reclus (1830-1905)
Great geographer, traveler, and anarchist, he is a pioneer of ecology.
He is the author of New Universal Geography.
Quote
The story of a stream, even one that rises and vanishes in the moss, is the story of the infinite. These sparkling droplets have passed through granite, limestone, and clay; they have been snow on the cold mountain, vapor molecules in the cloud, white foam on the crest of waves; the sun, in its daily course, has made them shine with the most radiant reflections; the pale moonlight has faintly iridesced them; lightning has turned them into hydrogen and oxygen, then with a new spark made these primal elements flow as water again. All the agents of the atmosphere and space, all cosmic forces, have worked together to incessantly modify the appearance and position of the imperceptible droplet; it too is a world, like the enormous stars rolling in the heavens, and its orbit unfolds from cycle to cycle in ceaseless motion (Story of a Steam, 1869).
