The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2007/2008
Muir SLETTEB YfeRSnY OF THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA Volume 18, Number 1 Winter 2007/20081 John Muir's World Tour (part VI) Introduction by W.R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this, the sixth and final segment of John Muir's World Tour, 1903-1904, we complete his journey from March 2...
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| Summary: | Muir SLETTEB YfeRSnY OF THE PACIFIC, STOCKTON, CA Volume 18, Number 1 Winter 2007/20081 John Muir's World Tour (part VI) Introduction by W.R. Swagerty Director, John Muir Center In this, the sixth and final segment of John Muir's World Tour, 1903-1904, we complete his journey from March 2 to May 27, 1904 from open waters in the Tasman Sea to San Francisco. Muir continues writing in his Collin's Paragon Diary, 1904, purchased in Australia and reflecting the calendar for the Southern Hemisphere. This form of "journal" allowed the author to enter one page per day. If he needed more space, he had to poach empty lines from the previous day or the one that followed. With such tight restrictions and weary from his near- year long travels, Muir's final leg is best described as one of economy of entries, often merely listing the temperature at daybreak and the condition of the skies, with very brief reflection on what has transpired that day. On occasion, there is no entry for a day or so, indicating little of consequence transpired. March 2, 1904: Muir is in rough seas between New Zealand and Australia, having engaged passage on the Zealandia on February 29; "most of the passengers suffering from seasickness, ship both pitching and rocking," he notes the following day. Landing in Sydney on March 4, Muir secured a ticket for home via Hong Kong and the Philippines. He then eagerly returned to his favorite haunt, the Sydney Botanical Gardens, where he spent several days botanizing and collecting many specimens to take home to California, some of which he planted on the grounds of his Martinez home; others dried for study and for science. By March 11, Muir was on the road again by stage and by rail in the forests around Sydney, taking in all of the trees, some up to 100 feet high, which caught his attention. Araucaria and Eucalyptus forests, as well as Bunya, some 200 feet tall made for "exciting walks in forest," home to "enormous spiders and webs and stinging ants," he tells us. Back in Sydney on March 18, Muir labored to dry his plant specimens for the next ten days, nearly all exotic to him prior to this trip. At sea again aboard the Empire, Muir wrote on March 31, "Glad to go homeward at last." Passing Brisbane and now in the tropics, Muir observed passing the first of many "low coral islands" on April 6, observing the atolls and reefs between the outer Great Barrier Reef and the "inner fringing reefs" as the Empire slowly made her way through these picturesque but dangerous shoals. Once in the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea, Muir's power of observation turned skyward once again, taking in the constellations of the southern skies, and especially the Southern Cross, which shone "with beautiful green and blue light" on April 9. Rounding the tip of Australia, the Empire docked at Port Darwin on April 11. Always the opportunist, Muir stepped ashore and quickly gathered plants "in park and roadside" as well as in the Darwin Botanic Garden for the next two days, bringing aboard a large collection of additional specimens. On to Indonesia and the port of Dili in East Timor, "a very old Portuguese town" dating back to 1520, and noted for its "fine groves of Cocoa." Figs, bread fruit, and banian were added to his herbarium prior to (Continued on page 5) r page 1 NeWs & Mot The Old Tramp in New Show "John Muir is Back - and Man! Is he Ticked Off!" He enters the stage grumbling - mumbling incoherent strings between huffs and puffs - something about incorrigible politicians and unforgivable misdeeds. John Muir is back - and he's more than simply disappointed. Renowned actor Lee Stetson performs this show in Yosemite Valley in his 2601 professional year with a spell-binding, one-man performance as California's best known conservationist, John Muir. In a unique medley of his famous scripts, Stetson blends stories of Muir's adventures in wild America- from Alaska to his beloved Sierra Nevada. Weaving hilarious tales from bear encounters to icy glacier-treks, Stetson spins a yarn like no other. He portrays Muir's deep compassion for the tree- people and his tireless efforts to conserve wild places in America and throughout the world. His normal, animated and happy story-telling is intermittently interrupted by the expressive realization that Lord Man has failed to heed his precautionary words. In this new script, Stetson portrays a sometimes angry and frustrated Muir. His patience is tried and his nerves are tender. He has spent his life battling dams and deforestation. He laments the ruthless extinction of nature's perfect assemblage of glorious species. He puzzles about "tourism" and "hiking" as gross distortions of his ideas on how to most purely experience nature's most grand wonders. He rails against the politicians and those who would be swayed by money and power - those who would slay forests and passenger pigeons for the almighty dollar. The conservation movement lives on in this often hilarious and sometimes passionate plea to keep the spirit of John Muir alive. Nature's Beloved Son: Rediscovering John Muir's Botanical Legacy by Bonnie J. Gisel with images by Stephen J. Joseph Foreword by David Rains Wallace Heyday Books, November, 2008 Hardbound, ISBN: 978-1-59714-106-2, $45.00 286 pages (9 x 12), with over 150 images John Muir's inordinate fondness for plants. As a young boy growing up in Wisconsin, John Muir faithfully recorded in his journal that the pasque-flower was a "hopeful multitude of large, hairy, silky buds about as thick as one's thumb," and that the lady's slipper orchid in nearby meadows "caught the eye of all the European settlers and made them gaze and wonder like children." Muir was blessed early on with a love and aptitude for botany, a field of study that helped him become one of the most influential environmentalists in the world. One realizes, in reading Nature's Beloved Son, how much Muir's successes as an adventurer, writer, and environmental advocate were driven by his belief in "nature's irresistible, divine beauty." Surprisingly, little has been written about John Muir the botanist. Environmental historian Bonnie J. Gisel takes us through Muir's evolving relationship with the natural world, touching on his childhood in Scotland and Wisconsin, his sojourn in Canada, his thousand-mile walk from Louisville, Kentucky, to the Gulf of Natures -Belovei 1 Son■ . •■ :»j a -IV ■ 1 1 Mexico, his ecstatic travels in California's Sierra Nevada, and his thrilling exploration of Alaska. Photographer Stephen J. Joseph's breathtaking prints of Muir's botanical specimens related correspondence are artfully presented in this book and provide the backdrop for the story of Muir's great passion for the natural world. About the Author and Photographer: Bonnie J. Gisel is an environmental historian and the curator at the Sierra Club's Le Conte Memorial Lodge in Yosemite National Park. She is the editor of Kindred and Related Spirits: The Letters of John Muir and Jeanne C. Carr (University of Utah Press, 2001) and Nature Journaling with John Muir (Poetic Matrix Press, 2006) and she has lectured extensively and published articles on John Muir as well as issues of environmental literacy. Stephen J. Joseph has been a photographer for more than forty years. His work has been exhibited at the Oakland Museum, the San Francisco Legion of Honor, the Ansel Adams Gallery, and elsewhere, and he has been the Centennial Photographer for the Muir Woods National Monument and an artist in residence for Yosemite's LeConte Memorial Lodge. Source: Heyday Books Fall & Winter 2008 Catalog. (Continued on page 4) The John Muir Newsletter Volume 18, Number 1 Winter 2007/2008 Published Quarterly by The John Muir Center for Environmental Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 ♦ STAFF ♦ Director W.R. Swagerty Editor W.R. Swagerty Production Assistant Marilyn Norton Unless otherwise noted, 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 printed on recycled paper page 2 The Unfinished Story of Annie L. Muir By Michael Wurtz Holt-Atherton Special Collections University of the Pacific Library John Muir's sister Annie L. Muir was born on October 5, 1846. Annie and her twin sister Mary were the last of the Muir children to be born in Scotland, and were followed only by Joanna who was bom in 1851 in Wisconsin. Although one of the youngest, Annie was the first of the Muir siblings to die when she passed away in 1903 at the age of 56 in Portage, Wisconsin. She was also the only Muir child never to have married. From reading the correspondence in the John Muir Papers either to or from Annie it becomes evident that she was a prolific letter writer. It is clear, however, that some of her letters were never saved and added to the Papers. For example, she writes to John in the spring of 1862 or 1863, "I hardly know how to answer your question, but I suppose our heads were made so that they would not ache when we are in the under side of the globe. If that is not the reason please tell me when you write next." The collection does not include the letter that contained John's original question or the follow-up "reason" letter either. Annie would almost harangue her friends and family into writing her letters. After she had spent almost four years in Martinez with John, Louie, and the children in the mid-1880s, she writes from the train on her way back to Portage, "Please let me find a letter awaiting me there for I long for news of you all and especially of the little girls of whom I find myself. .thinking of very often." Less than two months after she left the Alhambra Valley, she writes punitively to "Wanda and Baby Helen" that she did not really think that two-year-old Helen would be writing to her, but expected that seven-year-old Wanda would have made an effort - spelling errors and all. Their mother sheepishly writes back that she is "utterly ashamed" that she had not written and that Wanda must have "forgotten all her letters - about literally." Annie's life is elusive at best. She was probably named for her mother, Ann Gilrye Muir, and may have been part of the motivation for John to name his first daughter Annie Wanda Muir. There is no indication of what the "L" of her middle name stood for and she is addressed as "Annie," "Ann," and "Anna" throughout the letters. In the biographies and writings of John Muir, there are specks of her life. In Linnie Marsh's Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir, Annie and her sister Mary are referred to mostly as "the twins." The twins celebrated their third birthday while crossing the Atlantic Ocean on their way to America. The twins were "launching forth as teachers." Marsh also reveals that Annie suffered from "consumption," and that it had been the reason for her extended trip to Martinez from 1884 to 1888. Other writings about Muir bring up perhaps John's most pointed letter to his twin sisters. In November of 1860 he wrote to them about when he was forced to meet them as newborns, "I am sure I would have rather gone to school and got whipt on both hands, but I had to go and kiss them. O my! Kiss such soft, red looking things! But the sun rose sometimes and set sometimes, and things are changed." The relationship between John and Annie is hardly explored more than in that 1860 letter. Also in that letter he specifically addresses Annie and writes, "you scolded [me] too, but you did not exhort so much, and I used to scold you more and exhort you more, but I don't think I'll scold you any more." John confides in Annie and her sisters in his letters home while he was living in Canada. He relates a story of when he returned from "meeting" one Sunday morning and witnessed a cat catch a bird in the house. He chased the cat all over until he caught it with the bird still in its mouth. He tried to save the bird by choking the cat, but "I choked her and choked her to make her let it go until I choked her to death, though I did not mean to." He waited and hoped for the next of "her nine lives, but to my grief I found that I had taken them all." And the bird did not survive either. When the others returned to the house that afternoon they said, "Now John is always scolding us about killing spiders and flies but when we are away he chokes the cats." Annie never left home and lived principally with her mother until she died in 1896. Her father had left the family to pursue a religious group in the early 1870s and died in Kansas City in 1885. Annie was frequently not well. The first documentary evidence of her illness in her letters appeared in the early 1880s when she was preparing to visit the Muirs of the Alhambra Valley, but could not muster the strength to do so. When she did go, it appears that it was mostly for health reasons. In a February 1884, she describes a lung examination that she had. "Lower lobe of the right was entirely consolidated, or hepatized [a sign of ' pneumonia] . have coughed more, and the cough hurt me more than before, and I have been raising a little blood." After her visit to California, see stopped by to visit her physician brother Daniel. "Wben I was in Lincoln [Nebraska], Dan examined my lungs and throat. He agrees with the San Francisco Physician in saying that my lungs are entirely well. But he seemed to be surprised at the condition of my throat -which he says is very bad indeed. He looked into the upper part of my throat and found the mucus membrane much thick and swollen from chronic inflammation. And the condition farther down is no better." In 1901, Annie shared the house for a while with "Dr. West" and his family. West, an osteopath ("Osteopathy is not well known here now as it will be in a few years - or perhaps - months.") gave her free treatment that she thought helped. In October of 1902 she writes, "My health is better this year than last. In fact, I scarcely consider myself an invalid now (although I still cough some every day)." John Muir wrote to one of his cousins in January 1903, "Our sister Anne, one of the twins, died at her home in Portage on the 15th of this month, of Apoplexy, after a week's illness." Only Daniel was there. John continued, "I think poor Anne often overtasked herself in church work, in which she was very zealous." These clues of Annie's life hint at much more. There are mentions of her teaching and running a store with her mother. After her return from California in 1888, she was studying phonography (a type of shorthand) so she could be a reporter. It appears that Annie's exploits in California are mostly undocumented. A researcher could attempt to fill in Annie's story and her influence on John Muir by reading what others wrote about her - especially a deeper look into letters between John and his brother Daniel, presumably Annie's doctor, would shed some light on those times. page 3 "With Xmas Greetings to Mary, fromTwinnie A-," writes Annie Muir on the back of this photograph from Portage, Wisconsin sometime in the 1890s. Annie suffered from chronic illness, never married, and died at 56, Her letters in the John Muir Papers offer a fleeting glimpse into her life and relationship with her brother. (Fiche 27-1483 John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust) *1* *£* vl* v'- ■».!* *i* *£* *1* *_* %I> *_^ *|> *i* *_* *_* *A* *I* *1* *1* *1* *L* *1* *i* *!• *£* *&* >1* vL* »I* vL* «J> \1* *-!' *!* *i* ^f* JS *J> ^j* rtS *f* *|s ^J< *r* ^J^*J% *j* *j* *^ #^ *y* *J» *J* *J* «^ *y* *j^ #J^ (continued from page 2) NEWS & NOTES A Passion for Nature The Life of John Muir by Donald Worster Oxford University Press ISBN 978-0-19-516682-8 512 pages, 30 halftones, 5 maps Available October 2008 $34.95 "I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer," John Muir wrote. "Civilization and fever and all the morbidness that has been hooted at me has not dimmed my glacial eye, and I care to live only to entice people to look at Nature's loveliness. My own special self In Donald magisterial Muir's "special explored, as is ability, then and see the sacred world. A is the most the great founder of the written. It is the is nothing." Worster's biography, John self is fully his extraordinary now, to get others to beauty of the natural Passion for Nature complete account of conservationist and Sierra Club ever first to be based on Muir's full private correspondence and to meet modem scholarly standards. Yet it is also full of rich detail and personal anecdote, uncovering the complex inner life behind the legend of the solitary mountain man. It traces Muir from his boyhood in Scotland and frontier Wisconsin to his adult life in California right after the Civil War up to his death on the eve of World War One. It explores his marriage and family life, his relationship with his abusive father, his many friendships with the humble and famous (including Theodore Roosevelt and Ralph Waldo Emerson), and his role in founding the modern American conservation movement. Inspired by Muir's passion for the wilderness, Americans created a long and stunning list of national parks and wilderness areas, Yosemite most prominent among them. Yet the book also describes a Muir who was a successful fruit-grower, a talented scientist and world-traveler, a doting father and husband, a self-made man of wealth and political influence. A man for whom mountaineering was "a pathway to revelation and worship." For anyone wishing to more fully understand America's first great environmentalist, and the enormous influence he still exerts today, Donald Worster's biography offers a wealth of insight into the passionate nature of a man whose passion for nature remains unsurpassed. About the author: Donald Worster is Hall Distinguished Professor of American History at the University of Kansas. His books include The Wealth of Nature, Under Western Skies, and the Bancroft Prize-winning Dust Bowl. He lives in Lawrence, Kansas. What Would John Muir Say? Edited by Bernice Basser Turoff with photographs by David Best John Muir was truly a Renaissance man. Scientist, poet, ardent conservationist, inventor, political activist, and tramp— he casts an enormous shadow over the environmental movement he helped to form in his adopted California. His many achievements include founding the Sierra Club, and influencing the formation of our National Park System. His last big battle, to preserve Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park, was sadly lost with the construction of O'Shaughnessy Dam in 1923. What Would John Muir Say? takes you on a visual journey through John Muir's beloved natural landscapes. It examines the possibility of restoring Hetch Hetchy Valley, and explores some of Muir's insightful thoughts and observations about the glorious world he loved and celebrated. With 82 oversized pages of stunning photographs, this book offers a wonderful introduction to the humorous, poetic musing of this great American hero. For further information: David Best 5909 E. Armstrong Road Lodi, CA 95240 209 368 2378 panoramaman@earthlink. net www.panoramaman.net page 4 John Muir's World Tour (Continued from page I) setting out through the Sulu Strait for Manila, which was reached on April 20. Three more days of visiting government forest operations and botanizing added yet more specimens to Muir's baggage as the Empire steamed on to Hong Kong, arriving on the 25*. One last chance to visit a formal botanical garden and then a change of ships, Muir sailed upriver, bound for Canton, through "numerable islands" which he compared with the Alexander Archipelago of Alaska. Now aboard the coal-fired mail packet, S. S. Siberia, courtesy of railroad tycoon and philanthropist Edward Harriman, the journey took Muir to Shanghai then on to Nagasaki, arriving on May 5. Cultural excursions to a Shinto Temple and walks through Japanese gardens introduced Muir to yet another "main tree," the Camphor, which he described as "noble," with its impressive girth of "3 to 8 feet in diameter, 4 feet above ground." On to Kobe, via the Inland Sea, "every feature glacial," Muir notes. Impressed with the cleanliness of towns having "no squalor," unlike much of Asia that he had seen, as well as the beauty of water features, tea gardens, and hillsides, Japan made a favorable and lasting impression on Muir. Once, in Yokohama, he reacquainted himself with the crew of the Bayern, "my first home after escaping from the hardships and privations of Russian travel" on the Trans-Siberian Railroad, months earlier. Leaving Yokohama on May 12, wet weather and rough seas left "everybody with colds," writes Muir. Ten days later, the Hawaiian Islands came into view. A stop in Honolulu allowed Muir a brief visit to Pali, the Bishop Museum and Oahu College, where Muir had acquaintances from years prior. "Sorry to leave this charming island," Muir reluctantly reboarded ship on Sunday, May 23, spending the next few days drying yet more plant specimens from Hawaii, a place where he keenly noted, "many introduced plants" were in process of replacing native vegetation. A week later, Muir was home, docking in San Francisco on May 27, exhausted but energized by his many new botanical discoveries and the cargo of seeds, dried specimens, and publications he had acquired during his World Tour, near-a-year in the field. Once home, we assume Muir had intentions to write up his year-long tour, but he never carved out time to do so. On June 4, Muir wrote C. Hart Merriam, fellow scientist on the Harriman Expedition to Alaska in 1899, that he had "a glorious time in India, Australia, etc." and expected a visit to tell him in person the details. Upon returning from a trip to the Grand Canyon with his daughters Wanda and Helen, Muir summarized in one paragraph his travels in a letter to Henry Fairfield Osborn, paleontologist and professor of zoology at Columbia, ending his catalogue of places visited with "Had perfectly glorious times in India, Australia, and New Zealand. The flora of Australia and New Zealand is so novel and exciting I had to begin botanical studies over again, working night and day with endless enthusiasm. And what wondrous beasts and birds, too, are there!" The legacy of the World Tour is in the herbarium specimens that he collected and in living trees at John Muir National Historic Site in Martinez and adjacent grounds, once part of the Strentzel- Muir ranch. During a visit to John Muir's gravesite in 2004, Ross Hanna, Wanda Muir-Hanna's youngest child and now the only surviving grandson of Muir, pointed out a huge white eucalyptus on the edge of the pear orchard near the cemetery. The tree was planted by Muir upon his return in 1904 and is one of the largest of its kind in California, a living symbol of the Southern Hemisphere's influence on both Muir and his adopted state of California. March 2. Wind changing from east to nearly southwest with rain in the afternoon. Cross sea making rough sailing. Many of passengers sick. Only the brave albatross seems at home and at ease, sailing the white-maned -waves on weariless and almost motionless wings. Night gloomy - scud of rain and wind torn wave-tops sweeping over the ship. March 3. High wind and send- thrashed decks, most of passengers suffering from seasickness, ship Loth pitching and rocking. The sea between New Zealand and Australia is famed for its roughness. Have been reading Darwin all day, and all roughness has been charmed away. Storm beginning to abate, few -white caps at 9:00 PM, though swell still heavy. The albatross is ably at ease in admirable God-like strength. March 4. Much calmer, most passengers creeping out of bunks to dining room this morning Hope to reach Sydney in time for medical inspection, 6:00 PM., so as to get ashore. At noon -we have 70 miles to make. 3:30 PM Land in sight. Reached the dock at 530 PM and were soon at our old quarters at the Australia Hotel. March 5. Went to Cook s Office to try to arrange plan for homegoing. Have about decided to go to the Queensland -woods a week or two about Brisbane, then return here in time to take the Empire S.S. on the 26 for Hongkong via Port Darwin and the Philippines and on the 30 of April, the Siberia at Hongkong for San Francisco. March 6. Spent most of day in the Botanic gardens. Found the Chinese Torrey a [TorreyaJ and Montezuman Cypress of Mexico. The climate here is favorable to almost all the world s plants, more so than even that of California as the ripe bananas show. Walked in the afternoon through the Domain , a magnificent park full of fine trees. A grand avenue of Moreton Bay Fig - a tree somewhat like Magnolia. March 7. Start 5:10 PM for Brisbane. March 8. Arrive Brisbane at 930 PM March 9. Start at 10.00 PM for Rockhampton March 10. At 530 AM saw some fine Araucarias. 7:00 AM Between Mary bourough and Dunderberg, ran through a patch of Banksia in bloom, small crooked trees 10 feet high, growing on sandy ground - patch sand - by conductor to be 4 or 5 miles by 10 page 5 miles. Good for bees. Emus and kangaroos occasionally seen kere from cars. PM Ckinckona (?) not uncommon. A good many Eu(calpyti) in flower. Tke ground tkickly grass clad, trees mostly gum and taller, as Rockkampton is neared. Tke curious Bottletree is also common witkin an kour or 2 of Rockkampton, mostly small trees 20 or 30 feet kigk, pale y ellow foliage in rounded keads. Arrive Rockkampton at 4.00 PM Marck 11. Went to Botanic garden, 2 mdes from town in rain last evening and kad good time witk gardener Simmons wko freely offered specimens of all ke possessed, and I came away laden. Tkis morning returned and got more specimens and kad all of tkem named. Must remember kim and kis son. Saw- Travelers tree, and kad drink from penknife wound in steady stream. At noon start for Marysborougk, arrive 10:20 PM Trees tkus far making open woods witk keavy close grass carpet. Lotus (?) in ponds by track Trees 50 to 100 feet kigk. Marck 12. At Kilkeven Junction. Forests denser. Araucaria Cunningkamii common, some imperfect spared from axe over 100 feet kigk. Stems of most seem slender, wave finely [,J were exposed. Hindersia, a large broad beaded dark green tree, noble aspect, also common kere. A f ew miles f artker up tke track, tke Araucaria Cunningkamii skows grandly on sky line above low mountain or kill ridges, towering kigk above all otkers. In dark grooves of mountains, a deep green broad domed tree, perkaps G. Bidwelli or Agatkis rotonsta is -well marked. Arrived Wandai after dark, could find no bed save lounge in overflowed kotel in lumber camp. Marck 13. Magnificent open woods of spotted apple, and otker species of Eucalyptus, witk curious buskes, especially tke so-called ckerry witk stone outside. Tke Agatkis and Araucaria for a distance of 15 or 20 miles kas been cut and kauled kere for transport by rail to mils. Hired korses and buggy to take us to Nanango, 40 miles. Had grand ride, went on gallop muck of -way. Grand walk up mountain into Araucaria forest. Marck 14. Start at 4.00 AM on stage for tke terminus of anotker skort railroad, 50 miles. Arrived about 1:00 PM and at 2: o clock took train for Sydney, via Ipswick. Tke stage run -was very interesting. Road crosses tke Bunya mountains named so for tke Araucaria Bidwelli forests mingled witk A. Cunningkamii, tke former being called Bunya by Indians and wkites alike. Tke Bunya Courtesy of John Muir Papers, Holt-Athertou Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanua Trust. is tke nobler species, tke trees attaining 200 feet in keigkt witk broad keads wkick skow gloriously along ridges and peaks soaring in magnificent domes above all otker trees, outlined on sky. Tke otker species nearly as kigk and botk making good timber and yielding fine nuts. Had exciting walks in forest, enormous spiders and webs and stinging ants. Marck 15. Looking back over tke last excursion, tke most interesting pictures are in particular, tke broad continuous Eu(calyptus) forests, interrupted sligktly by tke Araucaria woods along mountain ridges, tke vine-tangled scrubs .along stream sides, tke Banksia tkickets of low gray buskes or small trees. [no entry for Marck 16,17J Marck 18. Start for Sydney. Land fertile bottom. Fig, Tristania, etc. Tke Eucalyptus large, 100 feet. Fig tallest, vine-tied and ornamental. At 9.00 AM enter sandstone kills witk tkin soil. Gum casuarina and few Aceaina, average 50 feet kigk, 1 foot diameter. 930 AM in broad valley, corn and alfalfa fields. Corn about ripe. Dairy region. Mountains to east. 1050 AM upgrade in sandstone kills. Some Eucalyptus in flower. No fields. Grass, trees. Strip of orange, strip of alfalfa and wilderness of forest Eucalyptus. 11:15 AM rock cuts and tunnels skort, in wilderness of kills. 1130 AM broad forest view, mountains in distance to east. 11:45 AM emerge on wider plateau witk fields and farms. Tawooraba. Volcanic kills passed kere. About 12:45 PM to little soutk of Clifton. 2:00 PM say 50 miles rick, black soil, Darling Downs, but little interrupted by ridges, mountains to east. Tke rougk kill region to Dalesen. Here saw ligkt green drooping leaved antkers like tke leaves of tke Eucalyptus, it was growing on. Near Ooramback, tke forest is dense and rick. Saw two species of palm kere, and soutk of Gosford, tke grass Tree and Banksia about tke fiords or lakes. Tke wkole region kere kas glacial look. Rock is sandstone tkin forests. Young Eucalyptus witk beautiful keads rounded and lobed, branckes naked tufted rickly at end. As Sydney is approacked, tke kills are left bekind and tke coast flats nearly level and mostly good soil is passed over. Small second growtk Eucalyptus and Leptospermum cover tke uncultivated fields. page 6 Marck 19. Arrived at Sydney at noon, spent tke afternoon in Botanic Gardens. Shops all closed every Saturday afternoon by law. Holidays take up a great part of year. [entry continued on July 9 page of diary J Near tke soutk boundary of Queenston, [Queensland] about tke Stantkorpe RR Station, tkere are extensive exposures of granite wkick kas every appearance of kaving been glaciated. Tke mountains also in sculpture skow similar proof of recent glacial action. Tree kere yellow green and conical, looks like Cypress, spiry top, small. Back nortk a few miles, noticed Banksia. Marck 20. Mr. Liddel arrived from Melbourne at 900 o clock tkis morning. Have been at work on plants - a large collection. Time and circumstances of travel and general ignorance of tke rickest places considered. Marck 21. Secured passage on tke Empire to Hongkong via Port Darwin and Manilla, witk a view to catcking tke Siberia for San Francisco, April 50. Marck 22. Working on plants koping to get tkem dry before starting kome. Marck 25. Working on plants and walking in tke Botanical Gardens, always sometking new for me tkere. Tke most interesting garden I kave yet seen. Besides a good representative collection of native trees and skruks tkere are large groups of most interesting trees, etc., of tke islands of tke Pacific, Soutk America, Africa, India and tke kot and temperate regions of tke world in general. Tke topograpkical features of tke garden and adjacent domain bordering tke karbor are admirable adapted to tke uses of a great city s pleasure ground. Tke favorite place for quiet strolls and picnics; tke Domain for all sorts of out of doors speaking, etc. Marck 24. Heavy rain early tkis moming. Secured a large lot of pkotos of wild scenery, forests etc., and books and pampklets. Curious kow tkis strange country is taking possession of me. In tke afternoon in tke Garden again admiring tke Eugenias, Agatkis, etc. Marck 25. Packing and dry ing plants in readiness for tke kome journey - a precious big lot of tkem tkere is, of wkick nearly every plant to me is novel. Many are also very beautiful and noble in size and port. Called on Mr. Hay in ckarge of tke Forest Reservations, wko kindly gave me a good deal of information of forest management kere, and some pampklet reports, pkotograpks, etc., and -went witk me to a coUection of woods near tke Gardens. New Soutk Wales kas a great many kinds of useful and beautiful woods for every user. Marck 26. Rain during tke nigkt and skowery all day. Worked on plants until after 5:00 PM., tken went to Botanic Gardens and wkile absorbed in tke native plants was called by one of tke guardians of tke garden and told tke gates were about to be locked for tke nigkt, and I would kave to make kaste to escape. Marck 27. Raining as usual. Hard at w https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1087/thumbnail.jpg |
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