EDITOR'S NOTE 



The papers brought together in this volume 

 have, in a general way, been arranged in chron- 

 ological sequence. They span a period of 

 twenty-nine years of Muir's hfe, during which 

 they appeared as letters and articles, for the 

 most part in publications of limited and local 

 circulation. The Utah and Nevada sketches, 

 and the two San Gabriel papers, were con- 

 tributed, in the form of letters, to the San 

 Francisco Evening Bulletin toward the end of 

 the seventies. Written in the field, they pre- 

 serve the freshness of the author's first impres- 

 sions of those regions. Much of the material 

 in the chapters on Mount Shasta first took 

 similar shape in 1874. Subsequently it was 

 rewritten and much expanded for inclusion in 

 Picturesque California, and the Region West of 

 the Rocky Mountains, which Muir began to edit 

 in 1888. In the same work appeared the de- 

 scription of Washington and Oregon. The 

 charming little essay "Wild Wool" was writ- 

 ten for the Overland Monthly in 1875. "A 

 Geologist's Winter Walk" is an extract from 

 a letter to a friend, who, appreciating its fine 

 literary quality, took the responsibihty of send- 



