Our National Parks

John Muir

Description

First published in 1901, “Our National Parks” is a fantastic guide to the wild mountain forest reservations and national parks of the United States, exploring their beauty and usefulness in an attempt to encourage contemporary readers to go out and enjoy the natural wonders of North America. John Muir (1838–1914) was an influential Scottish-American  naturalist, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, author, and glaciologist who famously fought to preserve wilderness in the United States of America. Muir's work describing his adventures in nature have been read by millions the world over and his activism has helped to conserve such important places of natural beauty as the Yosemite Valley and Sequoia National Park in America. Contents include: “The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West”, “The Yellowstone National Park”, “The Yosemite National Park”, “The Forests of the Yosemite Park”, “The Wild Gardens of the Yosemite Park”, “Among the Animals of the Yosemite”, “Among the Birds of the Yosemite”, “The Fountains and Streams of the Yosemite National Park”, etc. Other notable works by this author include: “My First Summer in the Sierra” (1911), “Steep Trails” (1918), and “The Story of My Boyhood and Youth” (1913). A Thousand Fields is republishing this classic book now complete with a biographical sketch of the author.

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 05 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781447488385
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

Our National Parks
By
JOHN MUIR

First published in 1901



Copyright © 2021 A Thousand Fields
This edition is published by A Thousand Fields, an imprint of Read & Co.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd. For more information visit www.readandcobooks.co.uk


To Charles Sprague Sargent Steadfast Lover and Defender of Our Country’s Forests This Little Book is Affectionately Dedicated


Contents
John Muir
NOTE
PREFACE
INDE X TO THE MAP
OUR NATIONAL PARKS
CHAPTER I
THE WILD PARKS AND FOREST RESERVATIONS OF THE WEST
CHAPTER II
THE YELLOWSTONE N ATIONAL PARK
CHAPTER III
THE YOSEMITE N ATIONAL PARK
CHAPTER IV
THE FORESTS OF THE Y OSEMITE PARK
CHAPTER V
THE WILD GARDENS OF THE Y OSEMITE PARK
CHAPTER VI
AMONG THE ANIMALS OF THE YOSEMITE
CHAPTER VII
AMONG THE BIRDS OF THE YOSEMITE
CHAPTER VIII
THE FOUNTAINS AND STREAMS OF THE YOSEMITE N ATIONAL PARK
CHAPTER IX
THE SEQUOIA AND GENERAL GRANT NA TIONAL PARKS
CHAPTER X
THE AMER ICAN FORESTS
APPENDIX


Illustrations
All the illustrations are from photographs made for this book by Herbert W. Gleason.
John Muir in Muir Woods, 1909.
Map showing the National Forests, Parks, and Monuments of the Un ited States.
Cassiope.
Mt. Rainier and Alpine Firs ( Abies lasiocarpa ).
The Grand Cañon of Colorado.
Minerva Terrace, Mammoth Hot Springs, Yello wstone Park.
Great Falls and Grand Cañon, Yello wstone Park.
Looking South from the Summit of Mt. Washburn, Yello wstone Park.
A Thunder-Storm in the Sierras.
Glacier Monument (Fai rview Dome).
Along the Crest of the High Sierras from the Summit of Mt. Lyell (1 3,090 feet).
Calif ornia Cones.
Yellow Pine (Yosemite V alley Form).
A Californ ia Life-Oak.
A Yosemite Cañon Cliff ( El Capitan).
Califor nia Azaleas.
Mariposa Tulips and the Snow Plant.
Alpine Phlox and Polemoniu m confertum .
A Ci nnamon Bear.
Deer Feeding in the Forest.
A Mountai n Woodchuck.
A Trout Stream in the Sierra Nevada (Ki ng’s River).
Mono Desert fro m Mono Pass.
Liberty Cap and Nevada Falls, Yose mite Valley.
Water Ouzels in a Moun tain Stream.
“Fountain Snow” on the High Sierras (Mt. L yell Group).
A Mountain Stream in June (Merced Creek and Vernal Falls , Yosemite).
A Sierra Cañon (King’s River Cañon from Lo okout Peak).
A Gi ant Sequoia.
Midsummer in the Seq uoia Forest.
“General Grant” Sequoia in General Grant Na tional Park.
In a Puget S ound Forest.
Sugar Pine.


John Muir
John Muir was born on 21 April 1838, in the small town of Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotland. He is best known as a writer and ecologist, an early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Muir’s activism helped to preserve the Yosemite Valley, Sequoia National Park and many other areas of wilderness. The Sierra Club, which he founded, is now one of the largest and most important conservation organisations in the United States, with 1.3 million members. Muir is perhaps best known for his literary oeuvre however, and his letters, essays and books recounting his adventures in nature, especially the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California, have been enjoyed by generations subsequent. Muir had a strict religious upbringing in Scotland, as his father believed that ‘anything that distracted from Bible studies was frivolous and punishable.’ However the young Muir was constantly out in the countryside, prone to lashings as a result. In 1849, Muir and his family immigrated to the United States, starting a farm near Portage, Wisconsin, and at the age of 22, Muir enrolled at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was here that he took his first botany lesson, which he later described as sending him ‘flying to the woods and meadows in wild enthusiasm.’ Muir never graduated, largely due to his unusual and eclectic selection of courses, and started working in a factory that made wagon wheels in 1866. He suffered a near fatal accident there, which left him blinded for six weeks, but on his return to sight the young man was struck with a new purpose and thirst for life. He felt that God had nearly killed him to teach him a lesson, and from this point on, indomitably followed his dream of exploration and study of plants. Thereafter, Muir explored the huge vistas and beautiful fauna of Yosemite, befriending the author Ralph Waldo Emerson in the process. In 1871 he discovered an active alpine glacier below Merced Peak, which helped propagate his theory that glaciers had sculpted much of Yosemite’s features. This was in stark contradiction with the accepted notion that Yosemite was formed after a catastrophic earthquake. Muir stayed in the park for the next seven years, however after pressure from his friends to ‘return to society’ he returned to the Oakland area in 1878, where he met Louisa Strentzel. The couple married in 1880, and had two daughters. Although Muir was a loyal husband, his wife said that ‘his heart remained wild’. On seeing his frequent restlessness at their home in Martinez, California, she would frequently ‘shoo him back up to the mountains.’ Muir threw himself into preservationist efforts, campaigning against domestic livestock in Yosemite, as well as praising Native Americans for their respectful and low impact lifestyles. He campaigned bitterly against the damning of the Tuolumne River to aid the growing population of San Francisco, writing to President Roosevelt, pleading for him to abandon the project. After years of national debate, Woodrow Wilson eventually signed the bill authorising the dam in 1913. Muir felt a great loss from the destruction of this beautiful valley, and it was to be his last major battle. Muir died of pneumonia on 24 December, 1914, after a brief visit to Daggett, California, to see his daughter Helen Muir Funk. During his lifetime, Muir published over 300 articles and 12 books, now retaining a legacy as the ‘patron saint of the American Wilderness.’ Muir is remembered on 21 April each year, as California celebrates John Muir Day; a celebration of his philosophy, which exalted wild landscape over human culture and helped to change the way Americans view their natural su rroundings.




John Muir in Muir Woods, 1909.


NOTE
For the tables of information concerning the National Parks and National Monuments printed in the Appendix to this volume the reader is indebted to Mr. Allen Chamberlain , who has been at much pains to accumulate data not easily obtainable elsewhere. The map at the beginning of the book has also been compiled by Mr. Chamberlain from authoritative governm ent sources.


PREFACE
In this book, made up of sketches first published in the Atlantic Monthly, I have done the best I could to show forth the beauty, grandeur, and all-embracing usefulness of our wild mountain forest reservations and parks, with a view to inciting the people to come and enjoy them, and get them into their hearts, that so at length their preservation and right use might b e made sure.
Martinez , California Sep tember , 1901








Map showing the Nation al Forests, Parks, and Monuments of the Un ited States.


INDEX TO THE MAP
There are two National Forests in Florida and two in Michigan which are included in the table in the Appendix are not shown on the map.
NATIONAL PARKS (In black on map)
1. Yellowstone, Wyo., Mont., and Ida. 2. Hot Springs, Ark. 3. Sequoia, Cal. 4. Yosemite, Cal. 5. General Grant, Cal. 6. Casa Grande, Ariz. 7. Mt. Rainier, Wash. 8. Crater Lake, Ore. 9. Platt, Okla. 10. Wind Cave, S. D. 11. Sully’s Hill, N. D. 12. Mesa Verde, Colo. 13. Glacier (see table 1, in Appendix), Mont.
NATIONAL MONUMENTS (Cross-hatched)
14. Devil’s Tower, Wyo. 15. Petrified Forest, Ariz. 16. Montezuma Castle, Ariz. 17. El Morro, N. M. 18. Chaco Canyon, N. M. 19. Lassen Peak, Cal. 20. Cinder Cone, Cal. 21. Gila Cliff-Dwellings, N. M. 22. Tonto, Ariz. 23. Muir Woods, Cal. 24. Grand Canyon, Ariz. 25. Pinnacles, Cal. 26. Jewel Cave, S. D. 27. Natural Bridges, Utah 28. Lewis and Clark Cavern, Mont. 29. Tumacocori, Ariz. 30. Wheeler, Colo. 31. Mt. Olympus, Wash. 32. Navajo, Ariz. 33. Oregon Caves, Ore.
NATIONAL FORESTS (Shaded)
34. Absaroka, Mont. 35. Alamo, N. M. 36. Angeles, Cal. 37. Apache, Ariz. 38. Arapaho, Colo. 39. Arkansas, Ark. 40. Ashley, Utah and Wyo. 41. Battlement, Colo. 42. Beartooth, Mont. 43. Beaverhead, Ida. and Mont. 44. Bighorn, Wyo. 45. Bitterroot, Mont. 46. Blackfeet, Mont. 47. Black Hills, S. D. 48. Boise, Ida. 49. Bonneville, Wyo. 50. Cabinet, Mont. 51. Cache, Ida. and Utah 52. California, Cal. 53. Caribou, Ida. and Wyo. 54. Carson, N. M. 55. Cascade, Ore. 56. Challis, Ida. 57. Chelan, Wash. 58. Cheyenne, Wyo. 59. Chiricahua, Ariz. and N. M. 60. Clearwater, Ida. 61. Cleveland, Cal. 62. Cochetopa, Colo. 63. Coconino, Ariz. 64. Cœur d’Alene, Ida. 65. Columbia, Wash. 66. Colville, Wash. 67. Coronado, Ariz. 68. Crater, Cal. and Ore. 69. Crook, Ariz. 70. Custer, Mont. 71. Dakota, N. D. 72. Datil, N. M. 73. Deerlodge, Mont. 74. Deschutes, Ore. 75. Dixie, Ariz. and Utah 76. Fillmore, Utah 77. Fishlake, Utah 78. Flathead,