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THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



John Muir. 



At Christmas time the newspapers 

 told of the death of John Muir of Mar- 

 tinez, California, on December 24th. 

 Every one who knows nature, especial- 

 ly in her larger aspects of mountains, 

 glaciers and forests, knows John Muir 

 and was pained to learn of the passing 



JOHN MUIR. 

 ■Cut by courtesy of Houghton. Mifflin & Com- 

 pany, Boston, Massachusetts. 



-away of this great California naturalist, 

 affectionately known as John O' Moun- 

 tains, in contrast to John Burroughs, 

 •our eastern naturalist at West Park, 

 New York, known as John O' Birds. 

 The western John gave especial atten- 

 tion to the scenic phases of nature as 

 our eastern John does to various forms 

 of living things. 



Ten years ago the editor of this mag- 

 azine spent a Sunday with Mr. Muir at 

 his Martinez home. This visit was ar- 

 ranged through the kindness of Miss 

 Helen Swett and Miss Bertha Chap- 

 man, who accompanied him. Miss 

 Swett is the daughter of the late John 

 Swett, the beloved pioneer teacher and 

 educator in California whose home 

 joins John Muir's. Both had immense 

 vineyards in the Alhambra Valley. 

 (Miss Chaoman was supervisor of the 

 nature studv of the Oakland school.) 

 She is now Mrs. Vernon Mosher Cady 

 of New York City. Because of Mrs. 

 "Cady's intimate acquaintance with Mr. 



Muir and his daughters, Wanda and 

 Helen, we have requested her to give 

 something of her personal recollections 

 of John Muir as she knew him. She has 

 complied with that request in the fol- 

 lowing. 



A Personal Tribute. 



BY BERTHA CHAPMAN CADY, NEW YORK 

 CITY. 



John Muir is gone ! The message 

 came so unexpectedly it sent a chill 

 through my heart as it did to every 

 lover of the out-of-doors in this broad 

 land of ours. John Muir, a name for- 

 ever bound with the rugged western 

 w ilderness of mountain and forest as 

 John Burroughs's name is one with the 

 gentler hills and woodlands of the 

 East. John Muir the naturalist of the 

 Sierras, the man who above all others 

 has taught us how to know and to love 

 our wonderous mountains and our 

 gaint trees. He knew their every mood 

 for he has lived with them as his most 

 intimate friends through the soft days 

 of summer and the silent nights of deep 

 snow-buried winter. Every bird was a 

 friend. All the lesser dwellers of the 

 forests seemed to be a part of him. 

 He was a rare botanist and an ideal 

 guide to the mountains and meadows 

 he knew so well. No blossom was too 

 tiny or too shy to pass unseen and no 

 giant sequoia too great to be appre- 

 ciated by those strangely penetrating 

 eyes that always had a way of looking 

 straight out at the world seeming to 

 hold it for his own. 



To-day I can see him as I last saw 

 him among his beloved Sierras, sitting 

 easily against a gray granite boulder 

 as a group of friends lounged near 

 him. We had wandered across a won- 

 derfully green meadow, here and there 

 waist high with gorgeous blossoms. 

 Muir's face shone with the joy in his 

 heart and as we passed to rest this 

 sinuous, brown, weather-beaten man 

 of the mountains sat looking far across 

 the meadows toward Mt. Dana. What 

 a picture! He pushed the silvering 

 hair back from his forehead and began 

 to talk. This was, of course, what we 

 were waiting for. what we alwavs 

 wiaited, and how the little man could 

 talk, and how he seemed to joy in the 

 tqlkinc — not if there were many about 

 or if others took part but when he could 



