106 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLV. No. 1153 



preciative nature studies ever written than 

 that of the cheery, dauntless songster, the 

 water-ouzel and that of the lively, demonstra- 

 tive, and pugnacious Douglas squirrel. In 

 short, his study of plants and animals was an 

 appreciation of them as objects of nature, 

 such as have been made by only two other 

 Americans, John Burroughs and Henry 

 Thoreau; and Muir worked on a far larger 

 scale than either. He was one of the great 

 interpreters of nature. 



Muir's interpretation of plant and animal 

 life is always humanistic without being false 

 or sentimental, as has been too frequently 

 true of the modern nature writers. The rigid 

 scientific man reads his descriptions with 

 pleasure; and, while they are clothed with 

 human warmth, he finds them in accord with 

 strict truth. 



But John Muir's most profound emotion 

 was aroused by magnificent scenery, and this 

 he always saw in its relations to sky and 

 cloud. 



The Sierra Nevada he thus epitomizes i^ 



Along the eastern margin of the Great Valley 

 of California rises the mighty Sierra, miles in 

 height, reposing like a smooth, cumulus cloud in 

 the sunny sky, and so gloriously colored, and so 

 luminons, it seemed to be not clothed with light, 

 but wholly composed of it, like the wall of some 

 celestial city. Along the top, and extending a 

 good way down, you see a pale, pearl-gray belt of 

 snow; and below it a belt of blue and dark purple, 

 marking the extension of the forests; and along the 

 base of the range a broad belt of rose-purple and 

 yellow, where lie the miner 's goldfields and the 

 foothill gardens. All these colored belts, blending 

 smoothly, make a wall of light ineffably fine, and 

 as beautiful as a rainbow, yet firm as adamant. 



It seemed to me the Sierra should be called not 

 the Nevada, or Snowy Eange, but the Eange of 

 Light. And after ten years spent in the heart of 

 it, rejoicing and wondering, bathing in its glorious 

 floods of light, seeing the sunbursts of morning 

 among the icy peaks, the noonday radiance on the 

 trees and rocks and snow, the flush of the alpen- 

 glow, and a thousand dashing waterfalls with their 

 marvelous abundance of irised spray, it still seems 

 to me above all others the Eange of Light, the 



s ' ' The Mountains of California, ' ' John Muir 

 (The Century Co.), pp. 4-5. 



most divinely beautiful of all the mountain-chains 

 I have ever seen. 



Muir's explorations of the Sierra brought 

 to the public as never before the wonders of 

 its river-worn ravines, its enormous glacier- 

 cut canyons, its mighty cliffs, and its craggy 

 peaks. From the fiery, dusty foothills to the 

 white granite, snow-covered crests, he knew 

 the Sierra as an intimate friend; and through 

 his vivid writings he communicated his glow 

 to all admirers of the sublime in nature. 



After years of climbing in the Sierra, the 

 magnificence of Alaska attracted Muir, and 

 four times he visited that region. His explora- 

 tions there represent the most important part 

 of his geographic work; they added much to 

 the knowledge of the Alaskan coast. A num- 

 ber of important inlets were mapped, the 

 chiefest of which is Glacier Bay. In the lat- 

 ter was discovered the majestic glacier which 

 bears Muir's name, a mighty stream of ice, 

 in its broadest part twenty-five miles wide and 

 having two hundred glacial tributaries. As 

 compared with this, the greatest of the Alpine 

 glaciers is a pigmy. 



Muir's close observations upon the motion 

 and work of glaciers, first the small ones of the 

 Sierra, and later the mighty ones of Alaska, 

 were important contributions to the knowledge 

 of these great agents of erosion. 



Muir saw that the mountains of the Sierra 

 and Alaska, while apparently immutable and 

 unalterable, are now being shaped by the same 

 processes that formed them. Storms which 

 drove the ordinary human being indoors were 

 an ardent invitation to John Muir. Of one of 

 the storms of the Sierra he writes:" 



It was easy to see that only a small part of the 

 rain reached the ground in the form of drops. 

 Most of it was thrashed into dusty spray, like that 

 into which small waterfalls are divided when they 

 dash on shelving rocks. Never have I seen water 

 coming from the sky in denser or more passionate 

 streams. The wind chased the spray forward in 

 choking drifts, and compelled me again and again 

 to seek shelter in the dell copses and back of large 

 trees to rest and catch my breath. Wherever I 

 went, on ridges or in hollows, enthusiastic water 



9 ' ' The Mountains of California, ' ' John Muir, 

 pp. 262-63. 



