TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN MUIR 

 By C. Hart Merriam 



JOHN MUIR was doubtless more widely known and more 

 generally loved than any other Californian. He was a famous 

 wanderer, and left a trail that is well worth following. It leads 

 to the mountains and forests, to health and happiness, and to a 

 better appreciation of nature. While he loved the mountains 

 and everything in them, his chief interests centered about the 

 dynamic forces that shaped their features and the vegetation 

 that clothed their slopes. 



But, of all the objects in nature, trees appealed to him most 

 strongly. These he knew as no other man has known them. They 

 were ever-present in his mind and formed an inexhaustible 

 theme of conversation. On his walks and in his study he de- 

 lighted to talk of their individual peculiarities, and with his pen- 

 cil he would make rough but characteristic sketches showing 

 the dominant distinctive features of each species. He knew the 

 dates of flowering and the differences of the sexes, and could 

 tell offhand the time required by the several pines for maturing 

 their cones. In nearly every case he could recognize a tree at a 

 distance by its general habit, and when specimens were shown 

 him he could identify them at a glance by the branches, flowers, 

 fruit, or bark. 



To gratify his love of forests and increase his knowledge of 

 them he traveled far, studying not only those of the Pacific 

 Coast from Alaska and British Columbia to southern California, 

 those of the Rocky Mountains from Montana to Arizona, those 

 of the Eastern states in both the northern and southern Alle- 

 ghanies and in the pine barrens and everglades of Florida, but 

 also traversing Russia, Siberia, and India, visiting Australia, 

 New Zealand, and the Philippines, and late in life even jour- 

 neying to South America to see for himself the great tropical 

 forests of the Amazon and the remarkable Araucaria of west- 

 ern Patagonia. Has any other human eye seen so many and di- 

 verse types of arboreous vegetation, or any other mind learned 

 so much of the great forests of the world? 



