Preface 



Lights without feeling a poetical appropriateness in 

 the fact that his last work ends with a portrayal of 

 the auroras — one of those phenomena which else- 

 where he described as "the most glorious of all the 

 terrestrial manifestations of God." 



Muir's manuscripts bear on every page impressive 

 evidence of the pains he took in his literary work, 

 and the lofty standard he set himself in his scientific 

 studies. The counterfeiting of a fact or of an experi- 

 ence was a thing unthinkable in connection with 

 John Muir. He was tireless in pursuing the mean- 

 ing of a physiographical fact, and his extraordinary 

 physical endurance usually enabled him to trail it to 

 its last hiding-place. Often, when telling the tale of 

 his adventures in Alaska, his eyes would kindle with 

 youthful enthusiasm, and he would live over again 

 the red-blooded years that yielded him "shapeless 

 harvests of revealed glory." 



For a number of months just prior to his death he 

 had the friendly assistance of Mrs. Marion Randall 

 Parsons. Her familiarity with the manuscript, and 

 with Mr. Muir's expressed and penciled intentions 

 of revision and arrangement, made her the logical 

 person to prepare it in final form for publication. It 

 was a task to which she brought devotion as well as 

 ability. The labor involved was the greater in order 

 that the finished work might exhibit the last touches 

 of Muir's master-hand, and yet contain nothing that 

 did not flow from his pen. All readers of this book 

 will feel grateful for her labor of love. 



I add these prefatory lines to the work of my de- 

 [ vii] 



