The Eleven Rock

Day 1: This image is intended to serve two purposes, the first of which is to launch the 11th year of daily posts covering a variety of subjects, but largely in the field of natural history and expressly in botany. It is my way of engaging my readership in the sciences, and I hope they find my presentations informative and entertaining. Secondly, it serves to lead into a discussion of human nature, specifically regarding our compulsion to collect. The photo shows the "Eleven Rock," which followed me home from Maine a decade ago, along with a handful of shells which left my luggage smelling decidedly marine. Y'see, it is in our very nature to collect things and transport them from one site to another, hence the archaeological discoveries of shell middens hundreds of miles from the waters of an ocean, or glassy, volcanic rocks in areas known to be of sedimentary geology. These collections give clues into the story of humanity, its discovery and its advances. Mankind travels from place to place in search of new and better things. Sometimes he stays where he finds them, but like as not, he takes them home and employs them in more familiar surroundings. Working in a National Park, I frequently have to tell people that they must leave their intended memorabilia behind: walking sticks, rocks, seed pods, but as I do so, I wonder silently if I am interfering with nature in a way most people don't consider. In denying people their collections, am I somehow changing what might have been a different history? Admittedly, I am of two minds on this subject and toe the official line when in areas where collecting is prohibited, but there are also those times when some allowable object like the Eleven Rock slips into my pocket. It's my nature.