The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 1996/97
Volume 7, Number 1 NEW °3> f\ND VARWIN God and Evolution in Nature by Shayne Zurilgen (Editor's note: The author, a senior in geology at the University of the Pacific, prepared this paper in the fall of 1996for an undergraduate history class, "JohnMuir and the Environment.") Ifred...
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| Summary: | Volume 7, Number 1 NEW °3> f\ND VARWIN God and Evolution in Nature by Shayne Zurilgen (Editor's note: The author, a senior in geology at the University of the Pacific, prepared this paper in the fall of 1996for an undergraduate history class, "JohnMuir and the Environment.") Ifred Lord Tennyson was looking into his microscope one day when he was moved to comment, "Strange that these wonders should draw some men to God and repel others."1 Tennyson was addressing the fervor surrounding Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. While he didn't really identify anyone in particular, Tennyson conceivably could have been illustrating the difference between Darwin and John Muir. Muir and Darwin were two men with similar backgrounds and a common love of nature and science. Both were painstaking observers. Darwin's theory of evolution had a tremendous influence on John Muir and is apparent in Muir's writings. However, Muir, like a great many other scientists and naturalists, used general Darwinian notions to support his own ideas of man and nature and their relationship to a divine creator. Both men started out as believers in the one "true" god of the Christian faith as described in the Bible. When Muir spent the summer of 1869 in the Sierra Nevada mountains he saw God in everything he observed and attributed divinity to all the natural laws at work there. Darwin, on the other hand, was overtaken by a slow growing realization that Christianity and possibly the presence of a divine creator had no place in nature or the science that defined its intricate workings.2 As is well known, John Muir was raised a Calvinist by his strict and often cruel father who did not see purpose in Charles Darwin from "Century" magazine. developing intellectual pursuits but rather seemed to feel that anything but hard physical work was a distraction from God's plan. Muir believed strongly in God but felt more tribute was paid to Him amidst His works in nature than in the confines of a church constructed by humans. After nearly losing an eye in a machine shop accident that temporarily blinded him, he left home to wander the country in search of answers about the meaning of life and to be as close to his beloved wilderness as a human could possibly be.3 Similarly Darwin had been raised in the church but his early family influences were more balanced. His grandfather Erasmus Darwin was a product of the Enlightenment, a very open-minded individual who believed in the ability of science to explain natural phenomenon and who despised the human convention of attributing to God that which was yet unknown. His maternal grandfather, Josiah Wedgewood, was a Unitarian who had thrown out many of the traditional teachings of Christianity and who held only its most basic religious ideals as truth. This was Darwin's inherited influence, "a mixture of free thought and radical Christianity."4 Both Muir and Darwin shaped their individual views of the natural world and God through intense scientific observation. Both men were the beneficiaries of fortunate circumstances that would allow them to devote their full attention to this task. Darwin was given a job as a naturalist aboard the Beagle, a ship embarking on a journey circumventing the globe with the main purpose of detailing maps. It was a job he appeared sorely unqualified for, having (continued on page 3) UNIVERSITY OF R* A C I F I C NEWS NOTES: THE BOYHOOD OF JOHN MUIR SOON ON PBS Public televison will soon air "The Boyhood of John Muir," a new PBS feature for children by Florentine Films. According to a press release, the film "incorporates the key elements in story-telling " by developing the "essential tension that runs through the plot, articulated in John's relationship with his father." For more information, contact co-producer Diane Garey at 20 Kingsley Avenue, Haydenville, MA 01039, phone 413-268-7934, fax 413-268-8300. L-R. Muir's boyhood home in Wisconsin; and his birthplace and early home in Dunbar, Scotland. WEST COAST LITERATURE THE THEME FOR CHI '97 John Muir, Robinson Jeffers, and other celebrated figures in the literary heritage of California and the Pacific Northwest will be discussed at the 50th annual California History Institute, held on the campus of the University of the Pacific, April 18-20. This three-day event features presentations by more than two dozen participants from across the country. The multimedia format will include lectures, exhibits, panel discussions, and a variety of video presentations. The program begins Friday afternoon, April 18, with a session on "California Places: Mapping the Terrain." Following a reception and banquet, a keynote panel of prominent California writers concludes the first day's event with a roundtable discussion on "Writing California." Saturday, April 19, starts with a breakfast and program sponsored by the Jedediah S. Smith Society, followed by morning sessions on "Natural California" and "California in the Sixties," and afternoon sessions on "Representations of California in Popular Culture," and "The Western in Cartoon and Cinema." The Institute concludes Sunday, April 20, with sessions on "Pacific Northwest Places" and "Social Utopias in the Far West." According to program co-chairs, Professors Reinhart Lutz and Heather Mayne of the UOP English Department, this conference will focus on literary approaches which reflect the rich ethnic and multicultural diversity of the people, living, dreaming, writing, and reading in California and the Pacific Northwest. "Almost from the beginning of its settlement by non-native peoples," said Lutz, "California and the Pacific Northwest have inspired literary and fictional responses to this unique part of America. With a wealth of literary texts surviving, and no end in sight to the production of contemporary fiction set in the "Golden State" of California, or further North on America's Pacific Coast, this conference invites scholarly responses to this wealth of literature." With literary criticism having seen dramatic changes in the 1990s, conference participants will discuss new approaches to classic texts and authors long considered canonical, as well as papers which focus on writers or issues that have shifted to the foreground of contemporary critical awareness. For program details, contact Professor Lutz at the English Department, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211, phone (209) 946-2616; fax (209) 946-2318. For general conference information and registration details, send your name and address to The John Muir Center For Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, 95211. RECENT MUIR BOOK John Muir: His Life and Letters and Other Writings. Ed. and introduced by Terry Gifford. London: Baton Wicks; Seattle: The Mountaineers, 1996.912 p. illus., maps. A densly-packed but highly readable collection of more than 20 books and articles by and about Muir, some previously unpublished. A reprint of Bade"s two- volume Life and Letters is included, along with S. Hall Young's effusive Alaska Davs with John Muir. and Muir's essays in Picturesque California. With a spendid eye for visuals, Terry Gifford has added a stunning color photo section as well as line cuts from Muir's journals and manuscripts, and contemporary photos and drawings that ease the eye from the smaller typeface that was required to incorporate so many discrete works into this edition. Along with its earlier companion, John Muir: The Eight Wilderness-Discovery Books, this handsome set makes available the essential Muir, the basic collection of his published works, in a convenient and economical package for the modern reader. r~- N EWSLETTER Volume 7, Number 1 Winter 1996-97 Published quarterly by The John Muir Center for Regional Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 «* Staff •«• Editor Sally M. Miller Center Director R.H. Limbaugh Graphic Designer Beverly Duffy All photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. This Newsletter is printer! on rmyrlftH paper R AN ARW God and Evolution in Nature (continued. proved to be only a mediocre student and scientist up to that point. However, he made a good impression on the owner of the ship and got along very well with the captain in spite of their very different and seemingly conflicting backgrounds.5 Muir had been a promising and mostly self-taught student and an inventor. He abandoned a conventional life and in June, 1869 secured a job helping to move sheep from California's Central Valley to the Tuolomne headwaters in the high Sierra above Yosemite Valley. The owner of the flock was very impressed with Muir's talent and enthusiasm for scientific observation. He hired Muir simply to make sure the herders were kept to task and otherwise he would be free to study nature.0 By the time Muir came to California he was very familiar with Darwin's works and theories. Muir often madeiiseofDamimannonffltsinhisbookAf^ ■ First Summer ill the'Siena which sprung (42. years later) from the journal detaiiinghis thoughts and observations those months working with the m shepherds When discussing a ■' , particularly aggressive species Of ant that has a painful bite but is the favorite snack of bears he writes, "Thus are . the poor biters bitten, like ■', ;^ every other biter, big or httle, in the world'i'great family.'" This reflects his understanding of the survival of the fittest in the Darwinian sense of possessing characteristics, physical or behavioral, that ■increase its chancesof teaching the breeding age. Muir makes sure to note when he refers to "big or little" that physical ■ strength and size, have little Some of Muir's pencil annotations from the back of Darwin's published journal (courtesy, of the Halt- Atherton Department of Special. Collections. UOP Libraries).'' Jm''''"--'""''^ '' to do with continued existence. Those with traits unfavored in their environment will not survive to pass on these traits, "Thus are the poor biters bitten." Further, Muir referred to the differences in captive and wild sheep. He saw that in captivity sheep became dependent on man. They had lost their ability to act on their own and were helpless without man.8 Darwin had made similar observations of domesticated animals in Origin of the Species. He noted, for instance, that most domesticated animals have drooping ears as a result of a loss of alertness brought on by the protection of life in captivity.9 But Muir injected morality into the mix. He despised the sheep and felt that they were corrupted by man. Darwin's theory of natural selection saw no lines of morality, only the struggle between species for a place in the system. Indeed, it was this lack of morality in nature that slowly eroded Darwin's faith and led him to rule out the participation of God in evolution. How could a loving and compassionate God create, for instance, the Venus' Fly Trap that deliberately misleads an insect by playing towards its attraction and what is presumed to be a survival instinct to bring it to its death? It also follows that if the great - ': successes and beautiful phenomena of nature were the '. '.' result of divine creation then so were all the failures and imperfect designs. In a book entirely devoted to orchids, Darwin argued that evolved structures that guarantee insect-aided fertilization are thrown together from parts originally used for other purposes. In short, Darwin believed that if there was a God that was omniscient and omnipotent, He would not be the "author of cruelties and waste seen in nature" or "stoop to trifling works of natural engineering," and He would not be bound to creation through natural laws.10 Where Darwin experienced a loss of faith upon investigating nature, Muir's faith was not only confirmed by the same process but magnified tenfold. Muir appeared to side somewhat with the supporters of special creation, Special creation held that god had created each of the lineages of species individually and then let natural page A N1) A OW J r\ : God and Evolution in Nature (continued. ■ ) laws control them. Darwin was quite outspoken against this theory for theological as much as scientific reasons. Muir took the theory one step further and contended that nature was not only God's creation but that there was a bit of divinity in everything there because of its source. Creation was ongoing rather than limited to a particular moment. Natural selection and geologic processes were the result of a little hold nudge. Nature was the "divine manuscript" with which, when a close communication is held, one can learn to know God." While many Darwinists used the theory of evolution to continue to place man in a superior position above the lower animals (and even to argue incorrectly for the superiority of individual races of human beings), Muir felt Darwin had brought humans closer to animals. Muir often took to referring to animals as "fellow mortals" and "little people" and personified their day- to-day activities. It could be argued that Muir only made these connections through analogy to persuade the reader to value all life and develop an understanding of animal life through familiar terms. However, it becomes increasingly obvious throughout My First Summer in the Sierra that Muir not only feels kinship with the animals but also with the plants and rocks and rivers and other forces of nature. He even goes so far to suggest that there could be "a heart like our own beating in every crystal and cell." Muir believed that everything is involved in one great plan with a great system of interdependency and at the helm is God himself. This idea is evident in Muir's support of the Great Chain of Being theory. According to this theory a sequence of organisms from the more "lowly" and simple at the bottom to God at the pinnacle exists and is predesigned by God himself. Scientific thought began to condemn this theory before 1800 but Muir continued to find it credible.12 This suggests the need for a general statement about John Muir's approach to scientific interpretation. Muir essentially interpreted his observations through a great deal of Romantic preconception. He did not approach science with the objectivity that brings it credibility. While Muir shaped his observations, to some degree, to fit into his view of nature, Darwin followed the scientific method, allowing his observations to shape his ideals, beliefs, and theories. It must be noted, however, that Muir's purpose was different from Darwin's. In order to convince the general public and government officials, both with limited understanding of science, of the worth of animal species and wilderness, Muir found a romantic appeal much more persuasive than direct science. Indeed, it is rarely science that influences government to act on scientific issues. Muir took it upon himself the task of winning their hearts and minds. In Stickeen, John Muir tells the story of a little dog in the effort to make an argument for intelligence and the presence of a soul in animals. The story tells of a pathetic looking little dog Muir encountered on a trip in Southeast Alaska; on a glacier the animal confronts its fear, revealing to Muir his soul. He argues that too much of what he would call intelligence in animals is attributed by scientists to instinct. Muir claims that Stickeen "thought, reasoned and reached the same conclusions" as he did and this was due to the dog's intelligence rather than instinct or psychological conditioning. What is especially interesting is that Muir often refers to Stickeen's bravery and courage as what appears at first to be a lack of reason or "dullness of perception" in the dog. Some would immediately perceive that a lack of reason is exactly what drove the little dog. Pure instinct and conditioning has directed the dog to follow its companion. Muir, however, had already credited the dog with an intellect near that of any man. For this reason Stickeen's actions reflected bravery; it confronted and conquered its fear and this elevated Stickeen to a higher plane in Muir's eyes.13 Darwinian theories hold that intelligence is really a product of thought and experience. Since humans have reached a higher level with regard to the evolution of the brain, they have the capacity to retain more memory of experience. For Darwin, this is the real source of intelligence. Darwin believed that in the absence of a "personal God" and without the promise of an afterlife, humans can only live life according to the influence of their strongest instincts or those that appear best to the individual. Darwin contended that dogs acted this way but did so "blindly" or without the benefit of significant memory. Humans have the ability to look back on past experience and weigh these experiences in regard to emotion and desire. Acting on social instincts and working for the good of the species to gain their favor is in the individual's best interest. Sometimes, however, the individual's experience and feelings contrast with those of the masses and that person will look to his "innermost judge or conscience" to lead him. The ability to reason is a direct product of brain capacity and therefore animals with a lesser brain capacity have a lesser ability to reason. Muir's conclusion was that Stickeen had a soul to guide him.'" While Muir and Darwin were in agreement on the observed operations of natural selection and evolution, their views diverged on the issue of God. Darwin could find no place for God in such a random process bound only by a few basic rules. Muir on the other hand, went into the wilderness looking to nature for affirmation of God and his own connection in the world and it was there that he found it. NOTES 1.Gertrude Himmelfarb, Darwin and the Darwinian Revolution, (New York, W.W. Norton and Company Inc., 1962), 390. 2. John Muir, My First Slimmer in the Sierra. (New York, Penguin Books, 1987), 1-32. Himmelfarb, Darwinian Revolution. 38(1-411. 3. Muir, My First Summer, vii-xvi. 4. Adrian Desmond & lames Moore, Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist. (New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1991), 5-21. 5. Alan Moorhead, Darwin and the Beagle. (New York, Harper and Row, 1970), 19-36. 6. Muir, My First Summer. 1-32. 7. Muir, My First Summer, 45-46. 8. Muir, Mv First Summer. 56-57 & 96-97. 9. Charles Darwin, Origin of the Species. (New York, Penguin Books, 1958), 31-58. 10. Neal C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation. (Chicago, The University of Chicago Press, 1979), 124-133. 11. Muir, Mv First Summer. 132. 12. Ronald Limbaugh, John Muir's Stickeen and the Lessons of Nature. (Fairbanks, Alaska, University of Alaska Press, 1996), 71-76. 13. John Muir, Stickeen, (The Final Draft of 1887), as taken from Limbaugh, Stickeen and the Lessons of Nature, 115. 14. John Muir, Stickeen (From Limbaugh), 122-125. page 4 Muir and Topography: he Natural Surveyor By Howard R. Cooley unacquainted with the topography of the upper mountains."2 Yet, by the third day out he was writing in his journal, "The sculpture of the landscape is as striking in its main lines as in its lavish richness of detail; a grand congregation of massive heights with the river shining between, each carved into smooth, graceful folds without leaving a single rocky angle exposed. .The whole landscape showed design."3 And this was only the chaparral covered slopes of Horeshoe Bend in the Sierra foothills! mm n his first rambles only botany was on John Muir's mind. He seemed not yet to have any awareness of topography-wading into the middle of Canadian swamps, rowing against the current of the Wisconsin River, and bushwhacking up steep slippery bluffs. But this is understandable, for a real sense of topography is never learned from books or maps, but is attained from exploring landscapes-following ridges, seeing low passes between cols, the way spur ridges lead upwards and join the rocky spines of main dividing ridges, the meandering ravines forming whole watershed systems with tributaries, headwaters, and opposing slopes. From this a keen observer develops a perception of natural landforms as orderly, and as much a key part of the evolution and ecology of the natural environment as plants and animals and climate. Muir's awareness of topography emerged gradually at first, then matured rapidly, almost as a newly realized revelation. After arriving in California in 1868, Muir and an Englishman, Joseph Chilwell, headed for Yosemite. Hiking "up the side of the dividing ridge parallel to the Merced and Tuolumne [Rivers] to Crane Flat.,' they followed a snow-covered trail from which Muir could "examine the topography and plan our course."1 Scouting between headwaters (on ridges) to avoid crossing creeks, he continued; "we found our way without the slightest trouble, steering by the topography in a general way along the brow of the canon." From there they "pushed eagerly on up the Wawona Ridge" to the Mariposa Grove. Like Joseph Walker and John Fremont, Muir scouted his way over the snowy Sierra, but what is important here is that Muir wrote about the topography as well as the trail. Paralleling his studies of plants, animals, and geology was the keystone of all natural environments, topography. Yet this element has not been developed to any degree in the Muir biographies. In the summer of 1869, Muir realized the opportunity before him when Pat Delaney hired him to help drive a band of sheep "to the headwaters of the Merced and Tuolumne Rivers-the very region I had most in mind," along the divide all the way from Central Valley to the Sierra Crest. Such a walk today would incur incredible logistics. Muir, however, "confessed that I was wholly M-:*>': W4 In My First Summer in the Sierra are many passages relating to the Merced-Tuolumne Divide that illustrate Muir's new awareness of place. A few of the most revealing follow: July 9. Our course today was along the broad top of the main ridge to a hollow beyond Crane Flat. July 13. Our course all day has been eastward over the rim of Yosemite Creek Basin and down about halfway to the bottom. July 14. What rich excursions one could make in this well-defined basin. July 15. Following the ridge, which made a gradual descent to the south, I came at length to the brow of that massive cliff [Yosemite Point] that stands between Indian Canon and Yosemite Falls. July 16. Crossed the head of Indian Basin.From the head of the Canon continued on past North Dome into the Basin of Dome or Porcupine Creek [a tributary of Snow Creek]. On July 26, upon ascending Mount Hoffman above Tenaya Lake, Muir penned a geological and topographical account that noted its fountains and accessible routes to the summit. A month later he was on top of Mount Dana, delighted by the view of "subordinate mountains, fringing in long curving lines the dividing ridges." Muir's investigation of high Sierra landscape intensified in the early 1870s while he was working on "Sierra Studies," a series of articles first published in Overland Monthly. In 1872 he made the first ascent of 13,157 foot Mount Ritter "in compliance with the intervening topography; for to push on directly.through the innumerable peaks and pinnacles that adorn this portion of the axis of the range.is simply impossible."4 Describing the view from the summit in his 1894 book The Mountains of California. Muir wrote: "the main telling features to which all the surrounding topography is subordinate are quickly perceived, and the most complicated clusters of peaks stand revealed harmoniously correlated and fashioned." Elsewhere he describes the "maplike distinctness" of the high Sierra as seen from the summit peaks. (continued. . .) *x: page 5 Muir and Topography: Fhe Natural Surveyor (continued.) The previous year, Muir had begun a three year exploration of every watershed of the Yosemite region: "tracing them to their fountains," he wrote, "we may view them together in one magnificent show, out spread over all the range like embroidery, their silvery branches interlacing on a thousand mountains, singing their way home to the sea."5 During this time he discovered sixty-five glaciers on the Sierra Crest, all previously unknown to the outside world. In September, 1871, on his way to explore Tuolumne Canyon-which he was the first to enter-Muir followed the west rim of Yosemite Creek Basin (a much longer route than the east rim), then traced the northmost tributary to its head on the Merced-Tuolumne Divide, then along Grand Mountain Ridge and down the South Fork of Cathedral Creek or one of the Ten Lakes outlets and into the Grand Tuolumne Canyon.6 "One can get through the canyon well enough with patience and love and the strength that comes of it," he admitted the next year, "though there are not wanting places that put even good mountaineers to their mettle."7 Anyone who has experienced such terrain can appreciate Muir's candor. He again entered the canyon in 1875 by way of Hoffman Creek and pushed on to Tuolumne Meadows. Curiously, in 1872, on his way to Hetch Hetchy Valley, Muir crossed Indian Basin, Yosemite Creek, and numerous sub-basins of Cascade Creek-curious because this is the most difficult form of hiking and most at odds with topography. Though admittedly wandering he seemed never to be lost and never missed opportunity to examine the glacier-polished rock of these basins.8 In 1873 Muir explored canyons of the upper San Joaquin and among the headwaters and glaciers about the Minarets. His journal9 entries of this period abound in topographical observations. Earlier, in 1870, Muir made an excursion across the Sierra to the Mono Desert with University of California geologist Joseph Le Conte and several students. And in 1875 he led a Coast and Geodetic Survey party to the summit of Mount Shasta. His reputation as a guide, naturalist, observer, and writer gained him an invitation to join the Coast and Geodetic Survey in Nevada and Utah in 1877 and again in 1878. Muir climbed the Wasatch and Oquirrh Ranges, and reached the summits often of the Great Basin's highest peaks, including 13,000-foot Wheeler Peak. In the autumn of 1877 Muir was in the San Gabriel Mountains of southern California. Here he climbed Mount Wilson, then took three days to walk twenty-five miles through thick chaparral, following or crossing "many subordinate ridges," and dropping down into tributary canyons of the San Gabriel River before climbing the summit of Mount San Antonio.10 Those familiar with the ridges and ravines of California's undulating landscape will appreciate Muir's topographical prowess. Few humans ever have the time, or stamina, to try such feats. To further his studies of glaciology begun in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, Muir made his first of seven journeys to Alaska in 1879. From the summit of Glenora Peak, he "counted upwards of two hundred glaciers." Some, he wrote, were "crawling through gorge and valley like monster glittering serpents; others like broad cataracts pouring over cliffs into shadowy gulfs; others, with their main trunks winding through narrow canons, display long, white finger-like tributaries descending from the summits of pinnacled ridges. Others lie back in fountain cirques."11 In Sum Dum Bay (now Holkham Bay) he described a great glacier, "sweeping boldly forward and downward in its majestic channel, swaying from side to side in graceful fluent lines around stern unflinching rocks."12 Muir made clear a distinction between glacial topography and glacier topography. From his first exploration on an Alaska glacier to his trek on Brady Glacier with the dog, Stickeen, to his ten-day sled-trip on Muir Glacier, he observed the details of crevasses, glacial surface streams, and great chasms, air bubbles in the ice, and ice fields of the glacier fountains surrounding the tips of peaks. Muir's topographical triumph (though he would never take pride in such an event) occurred in 1881 on Herald Island in the Arctic Ocean. As the Corwin came to anchor in the ice pack, "everybody [except Muir] seemed wildly eager to run ashore and climb to the summit of its sheer granite cliffs" which had been described by an earlier explorer as inaccessible. The crew ran straight across the ice to the nearest land and began to stumble up an excessively steep gully which ended at an inaccessible cliff. As they scrambled they sent a barrage of boulders bouncing down the plly and over the heads of those below. After this futile effort the eight exhausted men had a difficult retreat down the ravine-and, by Captain Hooper's orders-one at a time. page 6 Meanwhile, Muir stayed back, examining the island through the ship's spy glass, calmly selecting the route for his own ascent (another first). Then, ice ax in hand, he and a number of others rowed to a point a few hundred feet north of the fumbled route, to "an accessible ravine, the bed of an ancient glacier." Muir began cutting steps in the firm snow and made a gradual, easy, safe ascent, "along the backbone of the island to the highest point," a mile and a half from the point of departure and about 1200 feet above the sea. Here Muir was able to determine the dimensions of the whole island and its geology, and he discovered a heretofore unknown remnant of glacier. He spent the midnight hour alone on the highest summit wondering at the fate of the crew of the lost "Jeanette," the ship sent forth so confidently in 1879 to cross the Arctic. The tragedy of the DeLong expedition did not unfold until much later. On Muir's return to the shore he added some twenty-two species of arctic plants to his collection.13 John Muir had long been a guide to others who ventured into the wilderness, and in the later years of his life he continued that work, though by then a well known public figure. But by 1908, at age 70, his long walks lessened to shorter day hikes with groups who sought him out.14 He offered his listeners a full view of nature. He spoke of flowers, trees, rocks, glaciers, and animals. No doubt he imparted a few lessons on topography, for his descriptions of Yosemite excursions in The Yosemite in 1912, and Our National Parks in 1901 are all based on topography. In Picturesque California, published in 1888, he described climbing the Starr King Ridge "from which you obtain a fine general view of the Illilouette Basin " From that vantage he could also observe the watershed boundary at Red and Black Mountains, where "a hacked and splintered col curves around from mountain to mountain at the head, shutting it in on the east." The casual reader cannot easily sketch such a scene. It takes the knowledge of an experienced mountaineer, a knowledge attained from exploring landscapes as Muir did in the formative years of his long career. NQTES 1. Excerpts from Muir's personal narrative published in Life and Letters of Iohn Muir. edited by William Frederick Bade (Boston & New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1923). 2. John Muir, Mv First Summer in the Siena (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911), 4. 3. Ibid., 14. 4. John Muir, "In the Heart of the California Alps," Scribners Monthly. XX (July 1880). hi the version used in The Mountains of California. Muir ended the last quoted sentence only, ''extremely difficult" 5. John Muir, Our National Parks, in John Muir: The Eight Wilderness Discovery Boob (London: Diadem Books, 1992; 1901), 555. 6. See John of the Mountains, edited by Liimie Marsh Wolfe (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1938), 69-72. Costs are a problem everywhere, especially in academia today. We can only continue publishing and distributing this modest newsletter through support from our readers. By becoming a member of the John Muir Center, you will be assured of receiving the Newsletter for a full year. You will also be kept on our mailing list to receive information on the annual California History Institute and other events and opportunities sponsored by the John Muir Center. Please join us by completing the following form and returning it, along with a $15. check made payable to The John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, 3601 Pacific Avenue, Stockton, CA 95211. a 1 es, Iwant to join the John Muir Center and continue to J receive the John Muir Newsletter. Enclosed is $15 for a one- 1 year membership, Use this form to renew your current | membership. Outside U.S.A. add $4.00forpostage. I ■ Name I 1 Institution/Affiliation I 1 Mailing address & zip 7. Ibid., 169. John Muir, "The Hetch Hetchy Valley," Boston Weekly Transcript. March 25,1873. 9. Jo https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1047/thumbnail.jpg |
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