Our National ParksFirst published as a series of essays in€The Atlantic Monthly, €John Muir's€Our National Parks€contains Muir's renderings of some of the most picturesque national parks in America. Throughout his life, Muir traveled across the entire United States, from California, Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, all the while documenting his experiences in the American wilderness. This collection contains Muir's notes on such parks as Yellowstone National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Sequoia and General Grant National Parks and the American Forests. In a time when industrialization was gaining a stronghold in the mentality of many Americans, these works played an important role in changing American perception of wilderness conservation. Muir's literary style is at once inspiring and prophetic, and it helped spur on American interest in the environment.€This book is invaluable for anyone interested in Muir's life and travels, nature conservancy and preservation, natural history or the geography and ecology of the United States. |
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User Review - lazysky - LibraryThing“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms energy, while cares ... Read full review
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acres animals bark basins bears beautiful beds belt beneath birds boulders branches bright California called camp caņons clear close color cones covered deep diameter falls feet high fire five flow flowers followed forests four gardens giving glaciers grand ground groves growing half head height hundred hundred feet inches Indians July keep lakes land leaves less light living look meadows miles mountains natural nearly never night park passed peaks perhaps pine places plants range reach region reservations rest ridges rise rivers rocks seeds seemed seen Sequoia side Sierra slopes snow soil soon species spring standing storms streams summer sure thousand feet timber trees trunk valleys weather wide wild winds winter wonderful woods yellow Yosemite young
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Page 131 - During my first years in the Sierra I was ever calling on everybody within reach to admire them, but I found no one half warm enough until Emerson came. I had read his essays, and felt sure that of all men he would best interpret the sayings of these noble mountains and trees. Nor was my faith weakened when I met him in Yosemite. He seemed as serene as a sequoia, his head in the empyrean...
Page 331 - THE forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God ; for they were the best he ever planted. The whole continent was a garden, and from the beginning it seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe.
Page 362 - God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.
Page 169 - ... branches only, a few minute and delicate red cone-like blossoms, the fertile flower of the white pine looking heavenward. I carried straightway to the village the topmost spire...
Page 92 - Water rivers work openly where people dwell, and so does the rain, and the sea, thundering on all the shores of the world ; and the universal ocean of air, though invisible, speaks aloud in a thousand voices, and explains its modes of working and its power.
Page 265 - The first severe shocks were soon over, and eager to examine the new-born talus I ran up the Valley in the moonlight and climbed upon it before the huge blocks, after their fiery flight, had come to complete rest. They were slowly settling into their places, chafing, grating against one another, groaning, and whispering; but no motion was visible except in a stream of small fragments pattering down the face of the cliff. A cloud of dust particles, lighted by the moon, floated out across the whole...
Page 169 - I found my account in climbing a tree once. It was a tall white pine, on the top of a hill; and though I got well pitched, I was well paid for it, for I discovered new mountains in the horizon which I had never seen before — so much more of the earth and the heavens.
Page 56 - Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
Page 77 - Valley lies in the heart of it, and it includes the head waters of the Tuolumne and Merced Rivers, two of the most songful streams in the world; innumerable lakes and waterfalls and smooth silky lawns; the noblest forests, the loftiest granite domes, the deepest ice-sculptured canyons, the brightest crystalline pavements, and snowy mountains soaring into the sky twelve and thirteen thousand feet, arrayed in open ranks and spiry pinnacled groups partially separated by tremendous canyons and...
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Bibliographic information
| Title | Our National Parks Nineteenth Century Collections Online (NCCO): Photography: The World through the Lens Volume 16019 of Western Americana |
| Author | John Muir |
| Publisher | Houghton Mifflin, 1901 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | Mar 12, 2007 |
| ISBN | 1435752031, 9781435752030 |
| Length | 382 pages |
| Subjects | › BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / General NATURE / General TRAVEL / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |