John Muir Newsletter, Spring 1995
John Muir Newsletter spring 1995 university of the pacific volume 5, number 2 JOHN MUIR AND ZEN BUDDHISM by Michelle L. Dwyer (Editor's note: Michelle Dwyer is an English and Philosophy double major at the University of the Pacific. This paper was prepared in the fall of 1994 for an undergradua...
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| Summary: | John Muir Newsletter spring 1995 university of the pacific volume 5, number 2 JOHN MUIR AND ZEN BUDDHISM by Michelle L. Dwyer (Editor's note: Michelle Dwyer is an English and Philosophy double major at the University of the Pacific. This paper was prepared in the fall of 1994 for an undergraduate course, "John Muir and the American Environment. ") Many question whether John Muir followed traditional Christianity, mystic pantheism, ora combination of the two. After reading many of Muir's writings, it seems to me that he follows the religious beliefs of Zen Buddhism closely enough to say that Muir understood Zen without knowing much about eastern philosophy. Those familiar with Zen will not find this surprising; paradoxically, to know what Zen is, is to know nothing about it. The more one understands Zen, the more one understands this notion. Roshi Kapleau, an American Zen Master, said "If I speak of Zen, it won't be Zen I'm speaking of"1 "If you insist on words," he went on, "Zen is an elephant copulating with a flea."2 Thus words are useless to convey the essense of Zen. John Muir was also aware of the limitations of words to convey a sense of the mystical power and majesty of Nature. "Most of the words of the English language are made of mud, for muddy purposes," he exclaimed, "while those invented to contain spiritual matter are doubtful and unfixed in capacity and form, as wind-ridden mist-rags."3 Muir understood that one had to feel the power of Yosemite and not just read about it. To him, "It is easier to feel than to realize, or in anyway explain, Yosemite grandeur."4 Acknowledging the ineffectiveness of words led both Muir and Zen followers to emphasize experience as a path to truth. In Zen, one learns by finding one's True- Nature through years of discipline, primarily by studying Zazen, which teaches that one cannot really come to discover True-Nature unless one concentrates through sitting. Zazen can transform all aspects of one's life, but usually only after many years of understanding and enlightenment. Muir probably knew nothing of Zazen, but he knew much about the value of experience. He went to the moun tains to learn all he could from nature, not as an idle watcher, but as an active participant. His exploration of the Sierra became his Zazen, his concentrated effort to discern True- Nature. In exploring the physical nature surrounding him, in effect he was engaged in a Zen-like exploration of himself. By discovering Nature, he was discovering himself, and by discovering himself, he was discovering the universe. This is the meaning of his famous conundrum, "I only went out for a walk, and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in."5 As Muir biographer Michael Cohen observed, Muir was "appealing to a higher power than self, and attempting to accommodate himself to a still unknown world-view which was deeper, larger, and more powerful than one based on self- interest. . .He was beginning to think of human life, his own included, from an eternal perspective."6 Thus, by going out into Nature, Muir went into himself, and eventually came back out again with greater awareness. This is the way of Zen. Zen underscores the importance of first reaching the True-Nature of the essential Self, which is described as the "Unborn Mind, the immortal, original Self"7 The essential Self is reached through the conscious Self, but only when the mind is pure, serene, and calm. Although Muir's frenetic treks through the wilderness were far from serene, he was similarly engaged in self-discovery, pursuing (continued on page 4) JOHN MUIR AND THE DESERT CONNECTION by Peter Wild, University of Arizona "A bitter wind was blowing over the Mojave," says Linnie Marsh Wolfe, when an aging John Muir arrived at a desert ranch late in the winter of 1914.' Most people know that John Muir's last illness began near an obscure desert town called Daggett. However, beyond that, little is known about his relationship to Daggett, to the Mojave Desert, and to the friends he made there during the last seven years of his life. Yet the period is rich with Muir's personal involvement with, and influence on, other desert dwellers, and it is a period awaiting further exploration by students of Muir. A mountain and ice man, Muir didn't go willingly to the California desert. Rather, it was the health of daughter Helen that forced him there in his final years. He had spent much of 1905-1906 worrying over Helen's condition and trying to find a healing climate for her respiratory problems, first in the mountains of eastern Arizona, later at the Petrified Forest in the northern part of the state.2 The cure seemed to work. Then, back in Martinez, in 1907 Helen suddenly took a turn for the worse, and Muir rushed her south to the Van Dyke Ranch, a mile east of Daggett. The details of why Muir chose this ranch are not entirely clear. In fact, Daggett had a particularly evil reputation. On Saturday nights the boom town could wax riotous with miners pouring down from the rich silver claims in the nearby mountains-not at all the place either for gentle-mannered Muir or his young daughter. However, as it happened, the ranch was owned by Theodore Strong Van Dyke, a well-known outdoor writer of the day who shared Muir's sympathy for nature. Furthermore, Theodore had not only solved his own health problems by moving to the desert ranch some six years before, he often celebrated the healthful climate of the region in books and articles. Given the small community of California's writers at the time, it is likely that Muir knew of Van Dyke and perhaps had met him priorto 1907. In addition, since Theodore was Daggett's no-nonsense justice of the peace, a powerful position in a desert where the law was stretched thin, Helen likely would suffer no rowdyism from the locals.3 In any case, Muir got Helen settled at the ranch and returned to Martinez. Word came from Helen that she enjoyed the outdoor life and the company of Theodore and his son, Dix, so much so that Muir sent her both Stickeen, the family pet, and her horse, Sniffpony. Helen was in Daggett to stay. In a few years she married Buel Funk, the son of a nearby rancher. Thus Muir, alone and aging, had every reason to be a frequent visitor in Daggett. In one of those fortuitous events that can put flesh on the bare bones of history, Dix Van Dyke wrote a substantial memoir about life at the VanDyke Ranch. He records not only some of Muir's visits but follows Buel's "sparking" of Helen and their subsequent marriage.4 According to Dix, Theodore and Muir, two authors of about the same age, found each other "congenial souls," and both looked forward to times spent together at the ranch.5 At this point, however, the story becomes at once more complex and intriguing. Theodore, though a graduate of Princeton, an attorney, and a student of Greek and Latin of some accomplishment, had "gone native," shedding the pretenses of urban civilization. A mountain rover and naturalist of precise observation, he had earned the right, as had Muir, to speak with authority about California's vast and varied natural heritage. Not so Theodore's younger brother John C. Van Dyke. And here the ironies begin to turn on themselves. In 1901, John published a landmark book, The Desert, the first volume to counter the common wisdom of the day condemning deserts as ugly wastelands.6 Instead, with a poetry and power seldom surpassed, The Desert praised the arid lands for their beauty, for their lava peaks that glow like hot iron after sunsets, and for their storms that whirl up as showers of gold. The hitch is that John was no outdoorsman but a refined professor of art history at Rutgers University, a familiar of the east coast's toniest salons. Because of his own health problems he started visiting Theodore in Southern California sometime in the late 1890's, and the likelihood is very strong that the adventures in his brother's famous book, still in print, were more the stuff of his fantasy than experience. Whether or not John knew Muir through Theodore at the time John wrote The Desert is not known. In any case, some of the passages in the most famous book ever written about the southwest not only echo Muir's writing, at times John uses Muir's very (continued on page 6) JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER. VOL. V, NUMBER 2 SPRING 1995 Published quarterly by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 Editor Center Director Staff © Sally M.Miller R.H. Limbaugh This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. THE MUIR FAMILY IN ARIZONA (Editor's note: in conjunction with Peter Wild's article in this issue, we reprint below an excerpt from the New York Times, July 22, 1906, by Lilian Whiting, a Times correspondent. AtAdamana she found John Muir and his two daughters, Wanda and Helen. They had arrived the year before, hoping the high desert air would clear up Helen's respiratory problems. Helen lived there more than a year before returning to California, but recurring bouts of pneumonia brought her back to the desert late in 1907, this time at Daggett. Although the following excerpt only incidentally mentions John and Wanda, and says nothing about Helen, it provides a glimpse of the desert life and the scenery that so attracted Muir and his daughters. From a clipping in the John Muir Family Papers, Holt-Atherton Library.) ADAMANA, Arizona, July 18 Arizona is the land of enchantment. A spell is laid on sod and stone Night and day are tampered with It is the region in which the gods have held high carnival. Every journey one may take, every trail one follows, leads into strange and fascinating locality; and Adamana, the gateway to the petrified forest, has its own spellbinding power for the tourist. Adamana consists of a pump, the station, and two bungalows in one of which very comfortable entertainment is offered and in the other of which dwells a character whom all travelers meet, Adam Hanna, a distant relative of the late Mark Hanna, the original settler of this region. For a long time the place was known as Adam Hanna's and when, with advancing civilization, this designation became too colloquial for an up-to-date twentieth century world, the elision of two or three letters gave the present attractive name-Adamana. It was the witching hour of 5 a.m. when I left the comfortable ease of a Pullman sleeper to stop over at Adamana and visit the petrified forest. Left to myself I should have emulated the example of the man who journeyed to the north pole to see a sunrise that occurred only three days in the year. On the first two mornings he refused to rise on the plea of the further extension of his opportunities; on the third, when his servant reminded him that it was the "last call", he turned over and philosophically remarked that he would come again next year. But the dusky porter allowed me no such margin for reflection, and I was standing in some wonderful place east of the sun and west of the moon and the long train was vanishing in the distance almost before I knew whether I had exchanged the land of dreams for the land of day and daylight realities-- this weird and mystic panorama of the infinite desert of the bluest of turquoise skies already lighted by the blazing splendor of the June sunrise and the grotesque uncanny buttes scattered at intervals all over that vast plain. The intense silence was unbroken save by the voice and footstep of the man representing the little bungalow termed the Forest Hotel. Contrary to one's preconceived ideas of an Arizona desert, the morning was cold and the blazing fire and hot coffee were most grateful. But where was the "Petrified Forest"? one marveled. Away on the horizon gleamed an evanescent palpitating region of shimmering color. Yet this was not the "quarry of jewels," but the "Bad Lands" which have at least one redeeming virtue, whatever their vices—that of producing the most aerial and fairylike color effects imaginable. John Muir, the well know California naturalist with his two daughters has been passing the Winter at Adamana living in a tiny green adobe house of two rooms and a tent adjoining by the side of the bungalow that does duty as a hotel. All Winter Mr. Muir has been exploring the entire region and he has discovered another petrified forest twelve miles from the one heretofore known, one whose prevailing tone of color has led him to name it the "Blue Forest". This one is on the border of the Bad Lands, six miles south of the station while the other is six miles to the north. It was Miss Wanda Muir~her quaint name coming from her mother, the daughter of a Polish nobleman-who drove me out to this marvelous forest of stone. A graduate of Berkeley College, and a constant companion of her father in his wanderings, Miss Muir was indeed an ideal guide, and under her hand, the two horses sped along over the rough stony ground at a pace to set every fibre tingling. One of the features of the Arizona desert is the arroyo, a dry stream, a ready made river, so to speak, minus the water. Some of these even have a stream of flowing water, only it is under the bed of the river rather than on top of it, for Arizona is the land of magic and wonder and of a general reversal of accepted conditions. "Sometimes in driving out here" said Miss Muir, "a cloudburst comes up and returning the horses have to swim this dry stream. Once the water was so high it came into the wagon. Not infrequently when we go out to the forest some one comes dashing after us on horseback to warn us to get back as quickly as possible or the torrents of water from a sudden cloudburst will cut us off altogether, perhaps for a day and night". The pleasing uncertainty of life in Arizona may be realized from this danger of being suddenly drowned in the arid sands of a desert, and being confronted with a sudden Lodore that descends from the heavens on a midsummer noon. Arizona is the land of surprises. No known laws of meteorology or of any form of science hold good here. The mountain peak transforms itself into the bottom of a sea and the sea suddenly upheaves itself in air and figures as a mountain. Arizona is nature's kaleidoscope. It is the land of transformation. There are three petrified forests, each separated by a mile or two, the first reached by a drive of some six miles, while the (continued on page 6) (continued from page 1) his essential Self by observing the whole universe. As Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki remarked, "Doing something is expressing our own True-Nature. We do not exist for the sake of something else; we exist for the sake of ourselves."8 Living in union with one's True-Nature also brings about harmony in life. In a letter to his brother, Muir wrote about this realization: "I have no fixed practical aim, but I am living in constant communion with Nature and follow my instincts and am most intensely happy."9 By seeking harmony and True-Nature, Muir developed a philosophy remarkably close to the teachings of Zen. Discovery and understanding of True-Nature leads Zen practitioners to a perception of oneness between nature and humanity. Even though man and nature are two entities, there is only one essense. Our existences are both plural and singular, dependent and independent, living and dying. Everything in the universe is part of the essential self and is a part of one's life. Life, the universe, and the self are not divisible, but are one; the many are one and the one is many. As Suzuki expressed it: When you become one with Buddha, one with everything that exists, you find the true meaning of being. When you forget all your dualistic ideas, everything becomes your teacher, and everything can be the object of worship.10 What comes out of this realization is a release of the conscious self, or ego. By rejecting egocentric thinking, Zen followers believe the individual loses individual fears and self-interest and becomes one with all creation. By connecting with all that exists, we do not just act for ourselves, but for everyone and everything. This is true Enlightenment. Muir understood what it meant to lose himself and his ego in the oneness of nature: "No pain here, no dull empty hours, no fear of the past, no fear of the future. These blessed mountains are so compactly filled with God's beauty, no petty personal hope or experience has room to be."'' He could not have understood Zen more completely when he wrote to Mrs. Carr, "My own special self is nothing."12 From the understanding of everything being one, all dualities are abolished, life and death become the same thing, everything changes constantly, and all is eternal. Zen teaches that oneness is obtained through practice and not thought, for thought leads to thinking in dualistic terms. When we understand the essential self we see that it is "immortal and eternal, containing the past, the present, and the future with itself, and at the same time, from the viewpoint of space, it is infinite, including all the universe and reflecting everything like a mirror."13 Change is also essential in Zen. In Suzuki's words: That everything changes is the basic truth. because each existence is in constant change, there is no abiding self.the self- nature of each existence is nothing but change itself, the self nature of all existence. There is no special, separate self-nature for each existence.u Muir understood Zen notions of timelessness, non- dualities, creation and change, and the eternal interaction between life and death. In My First Summer in the Sierra he expressed Zen thinking in these words: "From form to form, beauty to beauty, ever changing, never resting, all are speeding on with love's enthusiasm, singing with the stars the eternal song of creation."15 Elsewhere he wrote: "We read our Bibles and remain fearful and uncomfortable amid Nature's loving destructions, her beautiful deaths. Talk of immortality! After a whole day in the woods, we are already immortal. When is the end of such a day?"16 Whether or not Muir can be said to be a Zen Buddhist is really to question whether or not he reached Enlightenment, the ultimate goal of Zen. Although one may still be a Zen Buddhist and not reach Enlightenment, is it possible that Muir reached Enlightenment without Zen? Michael Cohen, at least, seems to think so. He describes Muir's experience on top of Mount Ritter as Satori, which is the Zen understanding of Enlightenment, when the "self is absolutely identical with the universe itself and there is complete liberty of the mind.17 To understand Muir's r experience in light of Zen thinking requires an examination of Muir's writings-keeping in mind that both Muir and Zen agree that experiences like Satori can never truly be understood in words. Muir was climbing Mount Ritter but soon worked himself into a position from which he was unable to move. "My doom appeared fixed," he wrote. "I must fall."18 He seemed to panic for a moment and then: Life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness. 1 seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone experiences, instinct, or Guardian Angel—call it what you will—came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as though a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete." How should we understand this event? First there is obvious loss of self, then something higher and more powerful took charge. Ultimately he experienced a feeling of clarity and vision, suggesting Satori. Shoei Ando' s explanation of Satori is similar to what Muir experienced: "Man is forced to stand on the verge of death several times during his life. If he takes good advantage of such chances, he may attain spiritual enlightenment."20 Philip Kapleau also claims that some people, although very few, can obtain enlightenment without study or Zazen. The problem, he says, is that enlightenment usually does not last without proper discipline, and becomes only a memory. This may have been what happened with Muir, since he never had any formal training in Zen. Kapleau agrees that there are "holy mountains" which are "centers of cosmic energies, forces with the power to evoke awe and reverence.these mountains turned one inward and activates the subtlest vibrations within oneself."21 If one comes to such a place pure and open-minded, then a profound experience is possible. Mount Ritter was a holy mountain to Muir, and what he experienced on its summit was indeed profound. Perhaps it was Satori. Although Muir may not be classified as a Zen Buddhist, it is difficult to deny the many similarities. I found the more I read of both Muir and Zen, the more it becomes evident how the two are philosophically intertwined. Muir never had any systematic knowledge of Zen, but somehow he experienced the truths of the religion. The argument may still go on about the nature of Muir's religious beliefs, but what cannot be denied is that Muir discovered the essence of Zen, and this we now know can never be expressed in words alone. NOTES 1 Philip Kapleau, Zen: Dawn in the West (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doudleday, 1979), 8. 2 Kapleau, 9. 3 William Frederic Bade, The Life and The Letters of John Muir, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1924), 7. 4 John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra (New York: PenquinBooks, 1987), 132. 5 Muir, 73. 6 Michael P Cohen, The Pathless Way: John Muir and American Wilderness (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984), 19. 7 Shoei Ando, Zen and the American Transcendentalism (Tokyo, Japan: Hokuseido Press, 1970), 14. 8 Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind, Beginner 'sMind (New York: Weatherhill,1970),27. 9 Cohen, 29. 10Suzuki,44. "Muir, 131. 12Bade,29. 13 Ando, 28. 14 Suzuki, 44. 15Muir, 128. 16Browning, 33. 17 Ando, 192. 18 Cohen, 68. 19 Cohen, 68. 20 Ando, 183. 21 Ando, 43. CALL FOR PAPERS AND PARTICIPATION JOHN MUIR IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE Aspecial conference sponsored by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies University of the Pacific 49th Annual CaliforniaHistory Institute APRIL 18-21, 1996 In 1980 the first special Muir conference at the University of the Pacific celebrated the opening of the family collection of John Muir Papers for scholarly research. Follow-up conferences in 1985 and 1990 were both resounding successes and led to significant new publications. As more scholars discover the Muir Papers atUOP-since 1986 available on microfilm~the work of interpreting and redefining Muir's place in history continues unabated. A wealth of new books and articles onMuir have appeared since 1990, and an international cast of scholars have emerged with significant new approaches to understanding Muir and his times. Furthermore, the Nineties have seen a decided political shift to the right, and the result has been increasing challenges to the preservationist ethic and to other environmental ideas and values long identified as part of Muir's intellectual legacy. Thus it is time for another special gathering, a meeting of all those interested in John Muir and his legacy. This conference is designed to address all aspects of the topic from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Two days of academic sessions, possibly followed by a regional field trip, are open to presenters and participants from all disciplines. Students and the general public are also welcome to participate, either as presenters or as registrants who simply want to learn more about this important subject. The conference invites proposals on any aspect of this theme. Proposals for papers and sessions should be forwarded, along with a brief resume, to the CHI 96 Program Committee, in care of its Co-Chairs, Professors Sally Miller and Ron Limbaugh, Department of History, University of thePacific, Stockton, CA 95211 by November 15,1995. Phone (209) 946-2145; fax (209) 946-2318. For general conference information and registration details when they become available, send your name and address to The John Muir Center For Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, 95211. (continued from page 2) words and imagery.7 A lively personal element comes into play here, and sparks begin to fly. At one point, the paths of John Van Dyke and John Muir crossed at the ranch, and things did not go well. Dix says that". .the two wrangled incessantly.," with Muir stomping off in some heat.8In contrast, John's version of the meeting in his Autobiography all but lowers the mantle of sainthood around Muir's shoulders.9 These and other aspects of John Muir's days on the Mojave Desert may never be resolved. Yet references to them keep cropping up in unpublished sources. The little town of Daggett remains much as it was when Muir knew it. The old general store he likely visited stands in the center of town, as does the house on the Van Dyke Ranch where Helen lived. A few hundred yards away is "Desertaire," the mansionBuel and Helen built after Muir's death, today in an excellent state of preservation. All await further investigation. NOTES 1 Linnie Marsh Wolfe, Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), P. 347 2 Peter Wild, "Months of Sorrow and renewal : John Muir in Arizona, 1905-1906," Journal of the Southwest 29 (Spring 1987) : 65-80 3 For more on Theodore see Peter Wild, Theodore Strong Van Dyke (Boise:Boise State University, forthcoming). 4 Printed under various titles, such as "The Pioneer Story" and "Pioneer Days," Dix's memoir appeared on the intermittent Thursdays in the local newspaper, the Barstow Printer Review, throughout 1953, the year after his death. 5 Ibid., October 29, 1953. 6 John C. Van Dyke, The Desert: Further studies in Natural Appearances(Nev/ York: Charles Scribner's Sons,1901). 7 Compare, for instance, the closing paragraphs of John Muir's "The American Forests," Atlantic Monthly 80 (August 1897):156-7, with Van Dyke's The Desert, pp. 60-1. 8 Dix Van Dyke, Barstow Printer Review, October 29,1953. 9 John C. Van Dyke, The Autobiography of John C. Van Dyke: A Personal Narrative of American Life, 1861-1931. (Ed. Peter Wild. Salt Lake City, University of Utah Press, 1993), pp. 167-8 JOHN MUIR ON INTERNET In this day of the information superhighway, it is not surprising that Muir materials are available online through the Internet. A John Muir Exhibit is available at a World Wide Web Site: URL: http://ice.ucdavis.edu/John_Muir/. This Internet resource contains fact sheets, bibliographies, graphics files, quotes, a Muir Study Guide, information on the John Muir National Historic Site, and more. For those without Internet access, a "John Muir Fact Sheet" (available inEnglish, Spanish, German, or Japanese) andMuirtime-line bookmarks areavailablefrom: Sierra Club, 730 Polk St. San Francisco, CA 94109. For more information about John Muir books, T-shirts, music, audiotapes, videotapes, and materials for teachers, contact: John Muir Education Project, Sierra Club California,P.O. Box3543, Visalia, CA93278. Contact: Harold Wood (209) 73 9-8527. InternetE-mail: harold.wood@sierraclub.org. (continued from page 3) third is more than twice as far. The second is the largest and the most elaborate and in the aggregate, they cover an area of over 2,000 acres. The ground is the high rolling mesas, and over it are scattered thick as leaves in Yallambrosa, the jewel like fragments of mighty trees in deposits that are the wonder of the scientist. From the huge fallen tree trunks, many of these being over 200 feet in length and of similar proportions in diameter to the mere chips and twigs, the forests are transmuted into agate and onyx and chalcedony. Numbers of these specimens contain perfect crystals. They are vivid and striking in color-rich Byzantine red, deep greens and purples and yellow, white and translucent or dark in all color blendings. Great blocks of agate cover many parts of the forest. Hundreds of entire trees are seen. When cut transversely these logs show the bark, the inner fibre and veining as perfectly as would a living tree. And over all these fallen monarchs of a prehistoric forest bends the wonderful turquoise sky of Arizona and the air is all the liquid gold of the intense sunshine. At Tiffany's in New York may be seen huge slabs and sections of this petrified wood under high polish. A fine exhibit of it was made at the Paris exposition in 1900, and I had the pleasure of presenting a specimen to Rodin, the great sculptor, who was incredulous of the possibility that this block of onyx would have been wood. Through all the forests are these strange rock formations called buttes rising in the most weird and uncanny shapes from the sand and stones and sagebrush of the vast desert. What a treasure ground of antiquity. This region, which seems a plain, is yet higher than the top of Mount Washington, and the altitude insures almost perpetual coolness. Scientists seem to agree in the theory that the petrified forests are a deposit and that the trees have not grown on the land they now cover. Wherever they grew, it is believed a mighty sea arose- perhaps as the present Salton Sea in Southern California-- and engulfed them. Subsequent ages washed down mineral deposits, other ages buried them in sand, again floods came and washed them down and on; and then the mighty waters subsided, erosion set in, and the result we now behold. Had Emerson some clairvoyant perception of this wonder region when he wrote: And many a thousand Summers My gardens ripened well And light from meliorating stars With firmer glory fell. I wrote the past in characters of rock and fire the scroll The planting of the coal. And thefts from satellites and rings And broken stars I drew And out of spent and aged things I formed the world anew. All around this high plateau rise on the horizon surrounding cliffs to the height of 150 and more feet, serrated into ravines and gorges, variegated with the sandstone formation in their shimmer of colors, and indicating that this basin was once the bottom of a sea. It is the paradise of the ethnologist as well as of the geologist. Besides cliff ruins and hieroglyphics almost anywhere by chance may one find traces of submerged walls and following these a man with an ordinary spade may dig up prehistoric pottery, skeletons, beads, and rings, and occasionally necklaces. The pottery both in design and in scheme of decoration shows a high degree of civilization. Who were these prehistoric peoples who had built their pueblos and created their implements and pottery and were already old when Plymouth Rock was new? Much of the symbolic creation here still awaits its interpreter. From the millions of tons of glistening, shining, block and segments and tree trunks the tourist is not now allowed to carry away specimens carte blanche, as formerly. The Petrified Forests are now a Government reservation although not yet one of the Government parks. Small specimens within a reasonable amount are permitted the tourist as souvenirs. Sitting on the little plaza in the evening I watched a panorama of Kaleidoscopic wonder. Afar to the horizon the Bad Lands shimmered in a faint dream of colors under the full moon. The stars seemed to hang midway in the air and frequent meteors blazed through the vast mysterious space. Adamana is seventy five miles west of Gallup in New Mexico, the nearest large town. It is nine hours from Albuquerque, the metropolis of New Mexico, and five hours distant from Flagstaff to the west. All the thousands of acres of desert lands about require only water to render them richly productive. But water is unattainable. There are no mountain ranges near enough to produce water storage and unless the twentieth century scientists discover some way of creating rain, these arid regions must remain as they are. Yet even here American life and energy and progress are seen. The scattered settlers unite in maintaining public schools six months in the year, and with only from twelve to twenty pupils the teacher is paid from $70 to $80 a month- more than twice the salary paid in the country schools in New England. In this little bungalow here at Adamana, where Mr. Stevenson, the guide and guardian of the Petrified Forests makes tourists strangely comfortable in their desert sojourn. I find a piano, a well selected little library and young people whose command of the violin and piano offer music that is by no means unacceptable. The children get music lessons-no one knows how. They are eager for any instruction in lang https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1040/thumbnail.jpg |
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