John Muir Newsletter, Summer 1994

John Muir Newsletter summer 1994 university of the pacific volume 4, number 3 JOHN MUIR IN RUSSIA, 1903 PART THREE by William H. Brennan (Editor\u27s note: this is the last article in a three-part series by Bill Brennan, Professor of History at the University of the Pacific, a specialist in Russian and Soviet history and foreign policy. For prior articles, see the 1993 fall and winter issues of this newsletter.) When Muir left the vicinity of Saint Petersburg, then the capital of Imperial Russia, it was with an obvious sense of relief. He had found Peter the Great\u27s pride and joy a huge semi-dismal old town, of huge yellow public buildings, war monuments, barbaric colored churches, cathedrals and palaces filled with armor, jewelry and some fine paintings, 1 most of which was not to his liking. At the same time he had encountered the contradictions of Old Russia: signs of culture and elegance on the one hand, evidence of oppression and poverty on the other. He seems to have found Russia\u27s Window on the West unpleasant at best. Not even the beauty of the countryside, with its ever- present forest growing right down to the edge of both river and lake and broken occasionally by old, squalid villages interspersed with handsome residences built in comfortable looking seclusion , was enough to keep him interested.2 He was more than ready to leave the sights and sounds of the capital and its hospitable and demonstrative people, who sent him off with much kissing and handkerchief shaking. 3 The remainder of his journey through Russia was scheduled to occur in two segments. The first would take him southeast to Moscow and then south to the Black Sea and the Caucasus Mountains; from there he would return to Moscow. The second would expose him to Siberia, from which he was scheduled to enter Manchuria. What he encountered on these adventures must have astounded even his naturalist\u27s eyes, for the journal entries began to take on a sense of awe and to indicate a much more detailed interest. The Russia he now discovered did not look to the west; instead the country faced the south and east. This was the real Old Russia , and Muir was about to discover the land whose traditions and customs dated back centuries while possessing an incredibly beautiful and varied landscape. At the same time, he would also see many of the contradictions he had noted before. What strikes the modern reader of Muir\u27s journal, especially if one is aware of the tragic and melancholic fate that awaited modern Russia beginning with the First World War and the revolutions of 1917, is what Muir described concerning the sheer beauty and incredible richness of the land. There is not a hint that he found the countryside anything but prosperous. In fact, he seemed almost overwhelmed by what he saw. From the moment he left Saint Petersburg on the final legs of his journey, he registered astonishment at nature\u27s abundance in this strange land. Dense forests, growing right up to the edges of narrow roadways and railway tracks, formed steep canyon walls unlike anything he had ever seen. He described huge tracts of forest that extended as far as the eye could see and varied in species of trees from locale to locale. Thick pine forests and mixed varieties that included fir, larch and birch trees among others seemed endless. He noted that the Urals were covered by the most densely growing pine forests he had (continued on page 4) JOHN MUIR IN CYBERSPACE: DEVELOPING A LISTSERVER FOR MUIR SCHOLARS In recent weeks John Muir Center staff has been exploring the development of an electronic news service that will accomodate various needs, including publishing articles, exchanging ideas and information directly in a chat or interface mode, and posting notices (bulletin board). Many Muir scholars are already familiar with Internet, and a number have formed an informal Muir Users Group by posting their e-mail addresses (see below). To make it easier to manage a scholarly network specializing in Muir studies, we have recently engaged in a series of e-mail conversations with Harvey Chinn, administrator ( sysop ) of The ICE House (Information Center for the Environment) at UC-Davis. As Harvey explains, ICE operates as an official part of the UC John Muir Institute, and exhibits a variety of Muir information, particularly the Sierra Club study guide for public school observance of John Muir Day (April 21), prepared by Harold Wood of Visalia. I asked Harvey to explain in non-technical language how a listserver works. His response: A listserver is a software program. For the most part, it automatically manages a discussion that takes place by e-mail. There is an address to which a discussant may send their contribution, say [for example] John_Muir@ice.ucdavis.edu . The listserver then sends out a copy of the message to everyone who has subscribed to the discussion (ie, who is on the list ). The software servers deliver messages to the list of subscribers. In addition, there is an administrative address, usually listserv@ice.ucdavis.edu for tending to administrative matters, such as subscribing, cancelling, asking for help, asking for a list of all subscribers, and the like. Furthermore, the listserver can archive (store) a set of files, much like can be done by anonymous ftp or by gopher, but for use by people who only have access to e-mail. What gets archived (stored) is completely up to the listerver administrator .... This can include all past contributions (submissions) to the discussion. [If users want to exchange information directly, rather than going through the ICE listserver] then those users would use the personal e-mail addresses of those with whom they wish to communicate privately. He says the system can be used to archive and republish articles from the John Muir Newsletter in text files that could be read or copied via e-mail. It could also be used as the interface between the John Muir Center at Stockton and the newly-established John Muir Centre in Dunbar, Scotland (see A New Muir Association on page 6 of this issue). The prospects and possibities are endless. We would welcome your input, either electronically or on hardcopy. Send your comments to The John Muir Center for Regional Studies, UOP, by regular mail, fax (209-946-2318), or e-mail (johnmuir@unixl.cc.uop.edu). Updated John Muir e-mail user group addresses: Don Browne: browne@seas.ucla.edu Ron Limbaugh: rlimbaugh@unixl.cc.uop.edu Bruce Merrill: bruce@muskox.alaska.edu Sean O\u27Grady: spogrady@bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu Dennis Williams: dwilliam@aixi.ucok.edu Harold Wood: visalian@aol.com YOSEMITE PLATES NOW ON THE MARKET A few issues ago of this Newsletter, we informed our readers that the State of California planned to make available license plates featuring a four-color design of Yosemite Valley. Those plates have now been issued to those requesting them. In order to obtain such special-issue license plates, a $50 additional registration fee is necessary, and there is a $40 annual renewal fee. Proceeds of these sales are funnelled to the California Environmental Fund and the non-profit Yosemite Fund. While John Muir would undoubtedly be appalled to know the negative impact of the automobile on the California environment, he would clearly be pleased to have funds from that culprit put to such good use. Readers who reside in California may order these plates featuring the most famous Yosemite view, showing El Capilan, Half Dome and Bridalveil Falls. Contact the California Department of Motor Vehicles. JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER. VOL. IV, #3 (NEW SERIES) SUMMER 1994 Published quarterly by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 Editor Center Director Staff © Sally M. Miller R.H. Limbaugh This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. COLLEGE FRIEND DESCRIBES MUIR\u27S MECHANICAL MARVELS (Editor\u27s note: from the Muir family collection at the Holt-Atherton Library comes this item clipped from an unidentified issue of Outlook. The article referred to in the first paragraph was a Muir biographical sketch published in Outlook, vol. 74 (June 6, 1903), 365-77.) To the Editor of the OUTLOOK! The very appreciative article by Ray Stannard Baker, in your June 6 number, on the great California naturalist, John Muir, reminds me so vividly of my own short acquaintance with the unique character that I am tempted to share with your readers the reminiscence. We were fellow students at the University of Wisconsin in the spring of 1861, and our rooms in the old North Dormitory were in neighborly proximity. Among the furnishings of his room were the two wooden clocks to which Mr. Baker alludes. The one which had been shown at the State Fair I had seen at that exhibition the previous fall. It was a mere oblong wooden rack filled with wheels at one end of which a pendulum swung, and almost the whole of it had been fashioned with no other tool than a jackknife. It would record the seconds minutes, hours, day of the week and day of the month; and it had an apparatus attached by a light cord to a delicate set of levers at the foot of his bed. The frame of the bed was hung on trunnions; and, at a desired hour the clock would release a catch and the sleeper be tilted to nearly a standing posture. The other clock, also fashioned with no other tools than a jackknife and a hammer, was a wonderful revelation of rustic ingenuity and poetic instinct. It was wholly emblematic of old Father Time, being a combination of scythes, wheels and arrows. A rough bough of burr oak was set upon a base incrusted with moss. In one of the branches hung a miniature scythe with a regularly fashioned snathe and handles. At the place of union were attached two wooden scythes, swelling slightly from each other, but united at the points. Filling the space between the scythes from heels to points was a succession of wooden cog-wheels and small wooden dials. Descending from the scythe points was a wooden pendulum in the shape of an arrow, hanging point down. At its lower end forming the ball of the pendulum, was a cluster of six copper arrows, crossed. These had been hammered out of the large copper cents in use at that day. To the upper end of the arrow pendulum was attached two tin copper scythes (also formed out of coins) which, as the pendulum swung, would move as in mowing, the points of the scythes at each swing catching a cog in the little wheel placed there, thus setting in motion the whole machinery. In addition to the records of the larger clock, this one told also the month and the year, and could be attached to the bed alarm. Muir told us that, at one boarding place, he had connected with the clock a device that would throw the cap off a fluid lamp, strike a match, and light the lamp at the same moment that the bed fell so that he need not rise in the dark. One day he came in and announced to my roommates and myself that he had fixed his alarm so that it would waken him on pleasant, sunshiny mornings, but would allow him to sleep if it should be rainy or cloudy. Of course we were eager to see the phenomenon, and followed him to his room for the disclosure. He had detached the little cord from the clock, and carried it through staples in the floor and up over the sill of the window, which faced the east. Where it crossed the stone still outside it was replaced by a thread, under which at a convenient spot, he had rubbed powdered charcoal. Above this he had fixed a hand magnifier, or sun glass at such an angle and focus that when the sun rose it would burn the thread in two, and thus trip his bed and awaken him!. If the morning were cloudy no such event would occur, and he could finish his morning nap in peace. Financial stringency and then war service prevented my return to the University, and I never saw my young Scotch classmate after that term closed. During the years which have elapsed the query often crossed my mind, what ever became of John Muir? I expected to hear of him as a great inventor or mechanical expert and although the similarity in name of the Western scientist who discovered the Muir Glacier attracted my attention, I never really suspected the identity until I ran across a biographical hint in a magazine article, three years ago, which I now find absolutely confirmed in Mr. Baker\u27s article. HARVEY REID Maquoketa, Iowa. RECENT MUIR SCHOLARSHIP Jeff Goldsmith, a Bay Area environmental writer, is researching Muir\u27s first known effort to preserve California wilderness, a little-known attempt in the early 1880s to lobby Congress for a bill protecting two important Sierra parcels, one adjacent to Yosemite Valley and the other south of King\u27s Canyon. Linnie Marsh Wolfe\u27s biography, Son of the Wilderness, briefly mentions the effort, but apparently it has escaped the attention of most modern scholars. Jeff\u27s work will appear in print soon, and should provide a significant new slant on the beginnings of preservation. (continued from page 1) ever seen, while in Siberia he marveled at birch forests that covered hills and valleys from horizon to horizon. In addition, whole regions were covered for mile after mile with wildflowers of every variety, including some that were new to Muir. It was not the wild vegetation alone that impressed him, however. This area of Russia included the main food-producing regions of the empire, and, as Muir saw it, it was a most abundant land. There is no indication in his notes that Muir was aware that this same land had proven itself capable of delivering catastrophic disasters upon the people, for example, the great famine of 1891- 1892. What he discovered was what clearly appeared to be an agricultural cornucopia. Corn and wheat fields that extended for miles and produced incredibly rich harvests were accompanied by overflowing fields of rye, oats, barley and other grains. There were huge areas of pastureland supporting abundant herds of cattle and other livestock animals, including geese, in great numbers. Even areas that had been cleared of the forests, and valleys nestled between towering Caucasian peaks seemed to be exceedingly fertile. But as if to remind the American observer of the realities of human existence in this land of plenty, there were also signs of hardship and labor: fields left to lie fallow rather than subjected to the benefits of modern or natural fertilization, harvesting done by hand rather than machine. Despite these signs, however, there must have been no doubt in his mind that this was truly a land flowing with milk and honey.4 Muir was also astonished at the varied geography unfolding before him. Breath-taking vistas awaited him on every side. He marveled at the enormous extent of the southern steppes, with areas displaying shoulder-high grasses as far as the eye could see side by side with the abundantly-producing cultivated fields. The barren hills and mountains on the northern coast of the Black Sea had a raw beauty of their own, which he duly noted. The towering peaks of the Caucasus Mountains rivaled anything he had seen elsewhere and clearly excited him. He described roadways carved out of solid rock, railways following rushing mountain streams of clear cold water, and occasional side trips through the scenic areas he loved best. In Siberia he encountered huge rivers and their tributaries flowing to the north and disappearing into the arctic regions as well as endless mountain chains interspersed with valleys under cultivation that were not as fertile as those of southern Russia but were still able to produce crops. There was such a variety of scenes that the country reminded Muir at different times of the American West, including the Grand Canyon and the Plains, Alaska, the Hudson River gorge and Canada.5 Interestingly enough, he had little to say about the cities he encountered, as if his experiences in Saint Petersburg had been enough for him. He noted the curious and sometimes odd architectural style that characterized Moscow at that time, including the Kremlin and St. Basil\u27s Cathedral, but was relatively unimpressed. Some of Russia\u27s older cities, including the once great city of Tver, received a passing note, but little more. Sebastopol was a typical port city, and his brief stay there was highlighted by a trip to an old monastery perched precariously on the edge of the cliffs hundreds of feet above the Black Sea. Other cities were obviously not attractive to him at all. Tiflis, for example, he described as a dirty, hot, dry town with crooked, ill-paved streets and a market place filled with curious traders and people. Its only redeeming quality for Muir seems to have been a botanic garden filled with thousands of plants from the region.6 Others received hardly a passing note of recognition. When Muir and his party entered Manchurian territory, he could not have appreciated fully the glimpse he had been given of Old Russia, the Land of the Firebird. For him, it was a mixture of barbarism and modernity populated by a wide range of peoples of vastly different classes and ethnic groups. The range of human experience had covered the spectrum from surly river workers to hard-working traditional peasants, from the highest aristocrats to the lowest workers. The extremes of creativity were obvious, whether he was passing through still another Palace of Arts or gazing reflectively on the walls of a tsarist prison whose inmates were supposedly doomed to a life without hope. This was a land of endless surprises, apparent prosperity and incredible natural beauty. Muir had been given a glimpse into Old Russia; he could only speculate about the future. Notes 1 John Muir, AMSS Journal. Reel 29: World Tour, Pait I (June - July, 1903), p. 38. 2 Ibid., pp. 34-35. 3 Ibid., pp. 35-36. While Muir Ibund the young women of the upper classes to be generally attractive, he noted that the women as a whole were too stout. 4 Ibid., pp. 40-42. There is no indication in his journal that Muir was aware that hardly ten years earlier Russia had seen the end of a catastrophic famine. J Muir, AMSS Journal, Reel 29: Russia; Far East (July 25 - August 17, 1903), p. 5. 6 Muir, World Tou?\ p. 63. JOHN MUIR BOOK STILL AVAILABLE The volume based on the California History Institute of 1990, entitled John Muir: Life and Work, edited by Sally M. Miller and published on behalf of the Center by the University of New Mexico Press, is still available for purchase. The John Muir Center sold out most of its inventory, so only a few discounted copies remain available. However, the University of New Mexico Press still has copies available at the $29 price. The book has sold sufficiently well that the Press is considering issuing it as a paperback. The Newsletter will notify readers if and when the book is available in a paperback edition. JOHN MUIR CENTER HOSTED PACIFIC RIM CONFERENCE In April, 1994, the John Muir Center for Regional Studies held one of its largest and most successful California History Institutes. Rivaling in attendance only those previous Institutes focused on the life of John Muir himself, the forty-seventh annual conference drew over two hundred persons. The scope of the conference, entitled California and the Pacific Rim: Past, Present and Future, was such that concurrent sessions were necessary. Over seventy speakers participated in thirteen sessions. The Institute bore very much of an international flavor as participants came from all over the world, including England, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Australia, France and Canada. Topics presented included: An Historical Overview of Pacific Island Micro-States, by David Chappell of the University of Hawaii; American Country Music and the Japanese, by Stephen I. Thompson of the University of Oklahoma; A Case Study of the Taiwan Economy by S. F. Chu of the University of Nevada; The Developing of Coal Mining in Taiwan During the Japanese Occupation, by Tsu- yu Chen of the Academia Sinica of Taipei; Trade Institutions and Law: The Experience of Mexican California, by Karen Clay of the University of Toronto; Eastward of the Cape of Good Hope by Frank King of Roswell, New Mexico; The American Pacific Where the West was Also Won, by Arthur Dudden of Bryn Mawr; Some California Origins of the Jazz Boom in Occupied Japan, by Sidney DeVere Brown of the University of Oklahoma; Orientalism and Imperialism in American Geographies, by Richard Hardack, University of California at Berkeley; Ocean Trade and Interaction Across the Pacific Ocean to the Middle of the 18th Century, by Paul D\u27Arcy, University of Otago; New Almaden and California Quicksilver in the Pacific Rim Economy, by David J. St. Clair of California State University Hayward; and Long Term Perspective on the Pacific Rim, by Lionel Frost, LaTrobe University. Because of the enthusiasm spawned by the conference and the timeliness of the general topic, the John Muir Center is planning to develop a volume based on the proceedings, including many of the papers cited above as well and as a few others. The Newsletter will keep readers informed of the progress of the project. EARTH ETHICS (Editor\u27s note: Harold Wood ofVisalia sent us an abstract of some notes he took as part of an America Online mini-course: \u27\u27EARTHETHICS: EVOLVING VALUES FOR THE EARTH COMMUNITY . We think they are worth sharing) The following 13 value statements are derived from the historical study of the North American environmental movement by Canadian political scientist Robert Paehlke in his book Environmentalism and the Future of Progressive Politics (Yale University Press, 1989) 1. An appreciation of all life forms and a view that the complexities of the ecological web of life