John Muir Newsletter, April/May 1982

• Main Author: Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies
• Format: Text
• Language: unknown
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1982
• Subjects: John Muir; Newsletter; Holt-Atherton Special Collections; University of the Pacific; Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies; Stockton; California; John Muir Center for Regional Studies; American Studies; Natural Resources and Conservation; United States History; Atherton; Evelyn; Pacific; The Throat; glacier; glaciers; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/8; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=jmn

Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies VOLUME 2 University of the Pacific Stockton, Calif 95211 APRIL/MAY 1982 NUMBER 2 EDITORIAL STAFF: RONALD H. LIMBAUGH, KIRSTEN E. LEWIS PROJECT UPDATE The project staff has made a major push to complete the preparation of control cards for the Muir correspondence, 1858-1914. The now completed series contains approximately 6,000 items, each having an individual, seven-segment control card. The original copy will be used as the target card when microfilming. The six carbon copies have been filed by author, recipient, place, date, repository, and accession number to assist Muir researchers and provide additional finding aids for individual items. During the summer the staff plans to continue to develop the control system for the remaining Muir series, beginning with manuscripts and concluding with photographs and illustrations. A selected number of clippings and related papers will be placed under control because of their research value. However, most of the remainder of the Muir collection, consisting of minor notes, memorabilia, clippings, and related papers will not be included in the microform project. FUNDING UPDATE Considerable time has alternative funding prosp been submitted to private In the meantime, NHPRC an survival in Washington, b encouraging. The fact tha 1983 budget proposal, whi and archive related grant compromise package can be of funding for the Nation been spent lately by the project staff exploring ects and possibilities. Two grant proposals have foundations, and a third is now being drafted, d the National Archives continue to struggle for ut recently prospects have looked somewhat more t Congress has rejected the Administration's ch would have had a disastrous impact on history projects, leaves open the possibility that a reached which will restore a reasonable level al Archives and its agencies. BOOKNOTES Review by Maymie Kimes Mountain Climber, George B. Bayley, 1840-1894. by Evelyn Hyman Chase. (Palo Alto, California: Pacific Books, Publishers, 1981. 175 pp. Notes, bibliography, index. $12.95.) If your interest in John Muir has led you to read Muir's newspaper account of guiding a party of mountaineers through "A New Yosemite-The King's River Valley" and to the top of Mt. Whitney (1875). You may have been intrigued by the exuberant Mr. Bayley in the party, whose enthusiasm often found expression in explosive war whoops. Your curiosity may have been heightened with Muir's humerous account of Bayley's carrying "a small bottle of spirits for healing, sustaining, fortifying uses. a guarding angel in a bottle ever near?" Now, you no longer need to be curious about George Bayley, for his grandson's wife, Evelyn Hyman Chase, has written a well-researched, compelling biography of the intrepid "mountain climber". Interesting enough, Bayley's first trip to Yosemite was in 1866, two years before Muir's arrival there. The following summer Bayley returned to Yosemite with his bride. During their honeymoon, their mountain-climbing feats must have set an all time record. Thereafter, each summer Bayley returned to climb one more peak, accumulating an impressive list. It is not certain just when Bayley met Muir, but it was inevitable that two such mountain lovers being in Yosemite at the same time would become friends. In the 1875 trip after successfully climbing Mt. Whitney, Muir and his companions went through the pass to Mono Basin and on to Mono Lake. The author gives both Muir's account of thier frightening experience in a windstorm on the Lake, as well as Bayley's later written story. Here then is a rare opportunity to compare Muir's writing of an incident with another well written version of the same experience, and to observe Muir's literary license with details to heighten the drama of the occasion. A fascinating part of this book are the accounts of Bayley's two ascents of Mt. Rainier, both in the company of Pilemon Beecher Van Trump, who was renowned for having been one of the first to reach its summit. When Muir was going to Seattle in 1888 intending to explore the glaciers on this great mountain, it was Bayley who recommended Van Trump as a guide and gave Muir a letter of introduction. After the ascent of Mt. Rainier by Muir's party, Van Trump wrote a detailed, revealing letter to Bayley about the event. Someone has said, "To know a man's friends, is to know the man." Mountain Climber does open new vistas of John Muir. SECOND MUIR CONFERENCE The favorable response to our inquiry about a second Muir conference leads us to ask if anyone would be interested in helping on a planning committee and with other arrangements. Please let us hear from you. DID MUIR SAY THIS? We reprint below, in its entirety, the notorious "snake interview" which first appeared in the San Francisco Examiner July 4, 1889. Muir repudiated this "villainous article" as soon as it appeared, claiming he had been bamboozled and misquoted by an "innocent-looking Examiner reporter". THE SNAKES OF FRESNO John Muir Says They Will Kill Hogs and Eat Rabbits. A RATTLER LIKE A POST Some Queer Experiences of a Geologist in the Rights of the Sierras. John Muir, the noted geologist and. naturalist who discovered the great Muir glacier in Alaska, and traveled for ten years in the Sierras, while "pursuing his chosen pursuit, arrived here last night. A reporter found him his room at the Grand, note paper and pencils before him. He said he had just come down from his ranch at Martinez to get a little qui&t, while completing his work on the sixteen volumes of 'Picturesque California. ' THE DEADLY FRESNO RATTLER. 'The greatest place I know for snakes is in Fresno county, ' said he. 'It's hot there, and that's just what snakes like. They are out in the foothills mainly, and very thick. It is often said that a rattlesnake can't hurt a hog, but this is a mistake. They kill a great many hogs, and sheep and dogs too, in the Fresno hills, and the mountaineers there are very careful how they go about. 'It makes a good deal of difference how thick a hog's skin is. Probably a little rattlesnake, if it tackled a big swine, wouldn't have much effect on it, but take an averaged sized hog and a medium-sized snake, and the former has no show at all. The hog dies, just the same as a man would. 'While the rattlesnakes there are probably not as thick as they used to be, they are thick enough yet to make things lively. SMALL GAME BY HUNDREDS. 'They kill cotton-tail rabbits, squirrels, birds, and such things by the score, and live on them, but the sheep and hogs they simply kill. They don't eat them. They are too big. Some of the rattlesnakes are said to be six and seven feet long, though I never saw any quite so big. 'An old resident of Fresno tells me he saw a rattlesnake strike a hog in the throat, and the latter died in fifteen or twenty minutes. If the poison gets into them it takes no time at all to kill them. There are many other kinds of snakes there, but not so many as there are rattlers. . - 'In the upper end of Yosemite valley there used to be, and there are yet, a great many of the latter. They are usually found in the wild, rocky spots. In the Yosemite, above Mirror lake, they were once very plentiful. LOOKED LIKE A HITCHING-POST. 'One peculiarity of a rattlesnake is that if he sees you first he will put his head down and quietly steal away. I was once above Mirror lake with a party of ladies and gentlemen, and way off, 150 or 200 yards away, I saw something that looked like a small hitching-post. It stuck some three feet or more up. I said to myself, can this be a hitching- post in the grass? The others throught it was, but I doubted it. As we approached it went down gradually, and finally stole away in the grass. It was a big rattler and had been watching us. THE SNAKE LINE. 'The snake line is about 8,500 feet. You don't find them in the Sierras above that. The Nevada rattler, as a rule, is a pretty good- natured fellow, unless you attack him. The Nevada snakes look wise and are cunning, and persons are naturally afraid of them. They never try to get away unless they think they are seen. They vary in color from dark to yellow, but are mostly rather dark, with dark mottles or blotches JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies University of the Pacific Stockton, California 95211 https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1007/thumbnail.jpg