John Muir Newsletter, September/October 1982

Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies University of the Pacific Stockton, Calif 95211 VOLUME 2 SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 1982 NUMBER 3 EDITORIAL STAFF: RONALD H. LIMBAUGH, KIRSTEN E. LEWIS FUNDING UPDATE Yes, we are alive and cautiously months! The long hiatus since our la temporary staff layoffs and in part from Washington relative to our fund arrived, and most welcome news indee victory recently when Congress overr 1982 supplemental appropriations bil authorized $1.5 million for NHPRC in they had received earlier this fisca that the 1983 NHPRC budget will also it stood prior to the fiscal wars of nationwide support for both the Nati and Records Commission played a deci agencies from the disastrous cutback istration. We thank all those who he and we hope at election time you wil representatives who defended the int optimistic for st newsletter w to our anticipa ing status. At d! NHPRC suppor ode the Preside 1, which, among addition to th 1 year. There i be restored to the past year, onal Archives a sive role in pr s proposed by t lped with lette 1 remember thos erests of histo the first time in as due in part to tion of new tidings last the news has ters won a major nt\u27s veto of the other things, e $1.5 million s a fair chance $3 million, where The bipartisan, nd the Publications otecting these he current Admin- rs and phone calls, e Congressional ry. PROJECT UPDATE Despite the summer doldrums and the staff shortages, we have made substantial progress in the past four months as we prepare for the filming phase of the project in 1983. Over 6,000 items of correspondence are now incorporated into the project control system and are virtually ready for filming. This includes 65 Muir-Johnson letters transcribed from microfilm loaned by the University of Texas, as well as 40 fac- similie copies of Muir-Lummis letters that we recently received from the Southwest Museum. We also updated our Muir chronology and converted it to a card-index form. This will eventually appear as a reference section of the Guide to the John Muir Papers, scheduled for publication by 1984. Finally, during the summer months we prepared and mailed three grant proposals. We have asked the Skaggs Foundation for $10,000 to assist us in 1983; we have requested renewed funding from NHPRC for our anticipated 1983 budget of $42,303; and we have submitted a proposal to the National Endowment for the Humanities, asking for up to $66,000 over the next two years. THE MARY LOUISE BROWN COLLECTION OF MUIRIANA Earlier this year Mrs. personally delivered to the Studies, 31 volumes of note John Muir. This prodigious collection of Muiriana was also gave us 23 published b items is a scarce first edi Yesterdays, as well as the Expedition, published in 19 the index to Wolf\u27s 1945 bi photographs, manuscript phot Brown based on Muir\u27s publi Mrs. Brown has also made re project. For all of these s scholarly resources as well Project, we are deeply grat Mary Louise Brown of Phoenix, Holt-Atherton Pacific Center s and clippings that she had effort to gather and organize truly a labor of love for Mrs ooks by or about Muir. Among tion of Robert Underwood John fifteen-volume report on The 01. The notebooks, organized ography, Son of the Wildernes ocopies, and an original sere shed autobiography. Over the gular monetary contributions ubstantial gifts, which have as materially aided the Muir ef ul. Arizona, for Western collected on a documentary . Brown, who these choice son\u27s Remembered Harriman to complement s_, includes enplay by Mrs. past 18 months to the Muir enriched our Microform A JOHN MUIR MYSTERY From Vernon Carstensen of the University of Washington we recently received news and photos of an intriguing discovery . The sketch below is copied from the metal name plate on a polished wooden case, approximately 18 inches wide, eleven deep and eight high that unfolds to create a portable desk, 18 X 22 inches, covered with a blue felt pad and divided into compartments for papers, inkwells and writing instruments. Thus far we have found no mention of this case either in the Muir papers or in biographical writings and notes, but we are still looking. In the meantime we would appreciate word from anyone who may have clues to the origins and use of this handsome artifact or who might otherwise help us authenticate Muir\u27s association with it. MUIR CONFERENCE PLANNING POSTPONED In past issues we have mentioned the possibility of holding a second John Muir Conference. Since then we have learned of the impendinj publication of several new Muir studies. Therefore we feel it is advisable to momentarily postpone further conference plans until the publishing industry catches up with the recent scholarship. Until then we would welcome suggestions for specific program topics, participants and co-sponsors. FROM THE JOHN MUIR COLLECTION From the John Muir Collection comes this anonymous review, clipped from the Literary Digest, February 8, 1902. NATURE AND PATRIOTISM OUR NATIONAL PARKS. By John Muir. Cloth, 8% X 6k in., 365 pp. Price $1.75 net. Houghton Mifflin & Co. Here is a book to stir the citizen, the lover of nature, and healthy admirers of good writing and of an honest man. Altho Mr. John Muir, the author of Our National Parks, seems to have a proper prid.e as a patriot, his sturdy, soul-impregnated love of nature is the dominant passion in him. What a wanderer he has been, to be sure, over the wild, acres of native loveliness the West enfolds! Without any pedantry or fatiguing insistance, his speech betrays the scientist as its flowery style and live metaphors present the lover of earth\u27s beauty. You can not get away from John Muir in these pages, nor have you the faintest wish to do so. He has had a close personal familiarity with the five National Parks--Mt. Rainier, General Grant, Sequoia, the Yosemite, and the Yellowstone, all west of the Mississippi, and the thirty-eight forest reservations. The Government has over seventy million acres of territory set apart as national reservations, and is behind all other civilized countries in its care for them. There are tears in Mr. Muir\u27s voice as he pleads for the preservation and decent protection of our noble forests. It is not yet too late for the Government to begin a rational administration of its forests. he says, after quoting Mr. Bowers to the effect that the value of timber stolen from government lands from 1881 to 1887 inclusive was valued at over thirtyr- six million dollars, while losses in the same by fires amounted probably to over two hundred millions! The book is very interesting. Mr. Muir is intensely, quietly sincere, an enthusiast who glows with a steady flame. Some of his poetic touches are as naive as they are original. He has no hard word for anything in Nature. Witness his delicious apology for the rattlesnakes ! Poor creatures, loved only by their Maker, they are timid and bashful, as mountaineers know: and tho, perhaps, not possessed of much of that charity that suffers long and is kind, seldom, either by mistake or by mishap, do harm to any one. This gentle woodsman had one crime upon his soul, the slaying of two rattlers! I felt degraded by the killing business, farther from Heaven, and I made up my mind to be at least as fair and charitable as the snakes themselves. The croaking frogs are a brave, cheery set. Of the water-ouzel (a plain bird about the size of a robin) he remarks: No wonder he sings well, since all the air about him is music: every breath he draws is part of a song, and he gets his first music lesson before he is born; for the eggs vibrate in tune with the tones of the waterfalls. He tries to get to a 3,000-feet ridge to study an avalanche. He precipitates one and has a ride back on it, the return trip taking a minute while the ascent required a day. He joyfully says of this: This flight in a milky-way of snow-flowers was the most spiritual of all my travels, and, after many years, the mere thought of it is still an exhilaration. He also assisted at an earthquake. It seemed to me that if all the thunder I ever heard were condensed into one roar, it would FROM THE JOHN MUIR COLLECTION CONT. not equal this rock-roar at the birth of a mountain talus. The sound was inconceivably deep and broad and earnest, as if the whole earth, like a living creature, had a last found a voice and was calling to her sister planets. The disposition to quote from this vigorous, genial mountaineer is almost irresistible. Through his steadfast love of nature breathes a simple sense of the Power behind Nature, to this observer evidently a tender, personal God.. Where he speaks of the year\u27s seasons in the Sierras he is like the Psalmist calling upon the snow and rain and heat and cold to bless and praise the Lord. He revels especially in the Sequoia gigantea, vulgo, the Big Trees of California, the king of conifers, the noblest of a noble race. So old, thousands of them, still living, were in the vigor of youth or middle age when the star led Chaldean sages to the infant Savior\u27s cradle. This book of Mr. Muir\u27s is one every American should read, and he will find a pleasure in doing so.Buffon\u27s phase. \u27Le style c\u27est l\u27homme\u273 was never better exemplified. In speaking of the Sierra Nevada range he says: To defrauded town toilers, parks in magazine articles are like pictures of bread to the hungry. I can write only hints to incite good wanderers to come to the feast. Mr. Muir\u27s hints are worth taking. JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER Holt-Atherton Pacific Center for Western Studies University of the Pacific Stockton, California 95211https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1008/thumbnail.jp