My First Summer in the Sierra"Famed naturalist John Muir (1838-1914) came to Wisconsin as a boy and studied at the University of Wisconsin. He first came to California in 1868 and devoted six years to the study of the Yosemite Valley. After work in Nevada, Utah, and Colorado, he returned to California in 1880 and made the state his home. One of the heroes of America's conservaton movement, Muir deserves much of the credit for making the Yosemite Valley a protected national park and for alerting Americans to the need to protect this and other natural wonders. My first summer in the Sierra (1911) is based on Muir's original journals and sketches of his 1869 stay in the Sierras. Hired to supervise a San Joaquin sheep owner's flock at the headwaters of the Merced and Tulomne Rivers, Muir sets out for the mountains in June, returning to the Valley in September. He describes the flora and fauna of the mountains as well as his visits to Yosemite and his climbs of Mt. Hoffman and other peaks in the range"--From the Library of Congress American Memory website http://memory.loc.gov. |
Contents
| 231 | |
| 236 | |
| 239 | |
| 248 | |
| 255 | |
| 258 | |
| 259 | |
| 260 | |
| 263 | |
| 268 | |
| 270 | |
| 273 | |
| 276 | |
| 282 | |
| 285 | |
| 310 | |
| 311 | |
| 312 | |
| 314 | |
| 315 | |
| 316 | |
| 317 | |
| 322 | |
| 326 | |
| 327 | |
| 329 | |
| 337 | |
| 339 | |
| 342 | |
| 343 | |
| 344 | |
| 345 | |
| 346 | |
| 347 | |
| 351 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Abies magnifica animals avalanches bark basin bear beauty beneath birds boulders branches bread bushes calm camp cañon Carlo Cathedral Peak ceanothus chaparral charming climb clouds color cones conifers corral Coulterville Crane Flat Delaney dogs domes Douglas squirrel everything fall feet high fire flock flowers forest gardens gazing glacier glacier meadow glorious glow grand granite grass gray ground groves growing Hazel Green head height Hoffman inches Indian ivesia lake landscape larvæ leaves lilies living look magnificent manzanita Merced miles Mono Mono Lake moraine morning moun mountains Nature's never night noon plants purple range ridges river rocks seeds seems seen sheep shepherd shining side Sierra silver fir slopes snow species squirrels storm strange streams sugar pine summit sunshine Tenaya thousand feet trees Tuolumne Tuolumne Meadows Tuolumne River valley weather wild wilderness wonderful woods yellow pine Yosemite Creek
Popular passages
Page 293 - For a' that, and a' that, Their dignities, and a' that, The pith o' sense, and pride o' worth, Are higher ranks than a' that. Then let us pray that come it may, As come it will for a' that — That sense and worth o'er a' the earth, May bear the gree, and a' that. For a' that, and a' that, It's coming yet, for a
Page 175 - Perched like a fly on this Yosemite dome, I gaze and sketch and bask, oftentimes settling down into dumb admiration without definite hope of ever learning much, yet with the longing, unresting effort that lies at the door of hope, humbly prostrate before the vast display of God's power, and eager to offer self-denial and renunciation with eternal toil to learn any lesson in the divine manuscript. Muir's "divine manuscript" and Wordsworth's "Characters of the great Apocalypse" were in fact pages from...
Page 20 - We are now in the mountains and they are in us, kindling enthusiasm, making every nerve quiver, filling every pore and cell of us. Our flesh-and-bone tabernacle seems transparent as glass to the beauty about us, as if truly an inseparable part of it, thrilling with the air and trees, streams and rocks, in the waves of the sun, — a part of all nature, neither old nor young, sick nor well, but immortal.
Page 155 - Half-Dome, rising at the upper end of the valley to a height of nearly a mile, is nobly proportioned and life-like, the most impressive of all the rocks, holding the eye in devout admiration, calling it back again and again from falls or meadows, or even the mountains beyond, — marvelous cliffs, marvelous in sheer dizzy depth and sculpture, types of endurance.
Page 323 - One is constantly reminded of the infinite lavishness and fertility of Nature — inexhaustible abundance amid what seems enormous waste. And yet when we look into any of her operations that lie within reach of our minds, we learn that no particle of her material is wasted or worn out. It is eternally flowing from use to use, beauty to yet higher beauty; and we soon cease to lament waste and death, and rather rejoice and exult in the imperishable, unspendable wealth of the universe...
Page 160 - ll try to keep from such extravagant, nerve-straining places. Yet such a day is well worth venturing for. My first view of the High Sierra, first view looking down into Yosemite, the death song of Yosemite Creek, and its flight over the vast cliff...
Page 153 - ... from fire. Sunshine over all ; no breath of wind to stir the brooding calm. Never before had I seen so glorious a landscape, so boundless an affluence of sublime mountain beauty. The most extravagant description I might give of this view to any one who has not seen similar landscapes with his own eyes would not so much as hint its grandeur and the spiritual glow that covered it. I shouted and gesticulated in a wild burst of ecstasy, much to the astonishment of St. Bernard Carlo, who came running...
Page 58 - These are chosen probably because of their strength as opposed to the attacks of animals and storms. They work both day and night, creep into dark caves, climb the highest trees, wander and hunt through cool ravines as well as on hot, unshaded ridges, and extend their highways and byways over everything but water and sky. From the foothills to a mile above the level of the sea nothing can stir without their knowledge; and alarms are spread in an incredibly short time, without any howl or cry that...
Page 65 - ... and glinting against a thousand smaller stones down the ferny channel! All this shut in; every one of these influences acting at short range as if in a quiet room. The place seemed holy, where one might hope to see God. After dark, when the camp was at rest, I groped my way back to the altar boulder and passed the night on it, — above the water, beneath the leaves and stars, — everything still more impressive than by day, the fall seen dimly white, singing Nature's old love song with solemn...
Page 73 - Indians walk softly and hurt the landscape hardly more than the birds and squirrels, and their brush and bark huts last hardly longer than those of wood rats, while their more enduring monuments, excepting those wrought on the forests by the fires they made to improve their hunting grounds, vanish in a few centuries.