Letter from John Muir to [Robert Underwood] Johnson, 1896 Apr 24.

• Main Author: Muir, John
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarly Commons 1896
• Subjects: Environmentalist; naturalist; travel; conservation; national parks; John Muir; history; correspondence; letters; Fairweather; Underwood; glaciers; Alaska
• Online Access: https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/30; https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/context/muir-correspondence/article/1029/viewcontent/muir09_0144_let.pdf

48Martinez, Apr. 24, 1896My dear Johnson:I had a letter from Sargent today saying he was about to start to Washington to organize the Forestry Commission, - that the appropriation had passed the House but was still hung up in the Senate. He did not however feel any great anxiety about it.Senator Perkins replied to my letter that he was in full sympathy with us in the Commission & would gladly do all in his power to secure the amt deserved. So all looks rosy & I'm glad.I'm going to the glaciers about St. Elias, Prince Williams Sound, & Cooks Inlet in about a month from this date. Dont you want to go? The taluses will be in bloom by the time we get there, & few of them are so tangly as those of Tuolumne. And then the crystal prairies with the sun on them & the mountains looking down!! Come on & I will Martinez, California, Apr. 27, 1896My dear Colonel Sellers,I mean to go to Alaska in about a month from now & I thought Frank might want to make the trip with me. I shall go by the regular steamer to Sitka, then by a small mail steamer to Yakntal, Prince Williams Sound & Cooks Inlet to see the Fairweather Alps from the outside, & Mt. St. Elias & the glaciers thereabouts - & learn what I can. The trip will probably be free from desperate adventures through slightly rough & damp. I feel sure Frank would enjoy it & endure it in grand style. Indeed you all might, since Mrs Sellers triumphantly survived a weeks pounding on those Rocky Mountain quartz mills called Yellowstone mustangs, & the sleek black of the Continental divide & above all Catlins Killing corrosive cooking, [illegible] must seem easy by contrast. Amd then just think of the glory of white St. Elias & the broad crystal glaciers pouring to the sea!I saw Keith last Saturday. He is doing charming work but is making too much money for mental wealth & is as extravagantly unreasonable unpursuadable & unmanageable generally as ever. So of course he wont go to the wilderness with me. Ever ...