Muir was a man of his time, not perfect by today's standards, but he did much good for the environment. He wrote well. ( )

Some beautiful descriptions of the Sierra mountains, with very carefully made observations. But it can be a difficult read, because of how much the landscape has been devastated by climate change, in such a short time.

> In general the south sides are convex and irregular, while the north sides are concave both in their vertical and horizontal sections; the wind in ascending these curves converges toward the summits, carrying the snow in concentrating currents with it, shooting it almost straight up into the air above the peaks, from which it is then carried away in a horizontal direction. This difference in form between the north and south sides of the peaks was almost wholly produced by the difference in the kind and quantity of the glaciation to which they have been subjected, the north sides having been hollowed by residual shadow-glaciers of a form that never existed on the sun-beaten sides.

> After gaining a point about halfway to the top, I was suddenly brought to a dead stop, with arms outspread, clinging close to the face of the rock, unable to move hand or foot either up or down. My doom appeared fixed. I must fall. There would be a moment of bewilderment, and then a lifeless rumble down the one general precipice to the glacier below. When this final danger flashed upon me, I became nerve-shaken for the first time since setting foot on the mountains, and my mind seemed to fill with a stifling smoke. But this terrible eclipse lasted only a moment, when life blazed forth again with preternatural clearness. I seemed suddenly to become possessed of a new sense. The other self, bygone experiences, Instinct, or Guardian Angel,—call it what you will,—came forward and assumed control. Then my trembling muscles became firm again, every rift and flaw in the rock was seen as through a microscope, and my limbs moved with a positiveness and precision with which I seemed to have nothing at all to do. Had I been borne aloft upon wings, my deliverance could not have been more complete. … Above this memorable spot, the face of the mountain is still more savagely hacked and torn. It is a maze of yawning chasms and gullies, in the angles of which rise beetling crags and piles of detached boulders that seem to have been gotten ready to be launched below. But the strange influx of strength I had received seemed inexhaustible. I found a way without effort, and soon stood upon the topmost crag in the blessed light. How truly glorious the landscape circled around this noble summit!—giant mountains, valleys innumerable, glaciers and meadows, rivers and lakes, with the wide blue sky bent tenderly over them all. But in my first hour of freedom from that terrible shadow, the sunlight in which I was laving seemed all in all.

> one need never be at a loss in determining, within a few hundred feet, the elevation above sea-level by the trees alone; for, notwithstanding some of the species range upward for several thousand feet, and all pass one another more or less, yet even those possessing the greatest vertical range are available in this connection, in as much as they take on new forms corresponding with the variations in altitude.

> The sugar, from which the common name is derived, is to my taste the best of sweets—better than maple sugar. It exudes from the heart-wood, where wounds have been made, either by forest fires, or the ax, in the shape of irregular, crisp, candy-like kernels, which are crowded together in masses of considerable size, like clusters of resin-beads. When fresh, it is perfectly white and delicious, but, because most of the wounds on which it is found have been made by fire, the exuding sap is stained on the charred surface, and the hardened sugar becomes brown. Indians are fond of it, but on account of its laxative properties only small quantities may be eaten. Bears, so fond of sweet things in general, seem never to taste it; at least I have failed to find any trace of their teeth in this connection.

> It appears, therefore, that notwithstanding our forest king might live on gloriously in Nature’s keeping, it is rapidly vanishing before the fire and steel of man; and unless protective measures be speedily invented and applied, in a few decades, at the farthest, all that will be left of Sequoia gigantea will be a few hacked and scarred monuments.

> The Yosemite birds are easily found during the winter because all of them excepting the Ouzel are restricted to the sunny north side of the valley, the south side being constantly eclipsed by the great frosty shadow of the wall. And because the Indian Canon groves, from their peculiar exposure, are the warmest, the birds congregate there, more especially in severe weather.

> When feeding in such places he wades up-stream, and often while his head is under water the swift current is deflected upward along the glossy curves of his neck and shoulders, in the form of a clear, crystalline shell, which fairly incloses him like a bell-glass, the shell being broken and reformed as he lifts and dips his head; while ever and anon he sidles out to where the too powerful current carries him off his feet; then he dexterously rises on the wing and goes gleaning again in shallower places.

> On the tops of nearly every one of the Nevada mountains that I have visited, I found small, nest-like inclosures built of stones, in which, as I afterward learned, one or more Indians would lie in wait while their companions scoured the ridges below, knowing that the alarmed sheep would surely run to the summit, and when they could be made to approach with the wind they were shot at short range. … On some particular spot, favorably situated with reference to the well-known trails of the sheep, they built a high-walled corral, with long guiding wings diverging from the gateway; and into this inclosure they sometimes succeeded in driving the noble game. Great numbers of Indians were of course required, more, indeed, than they could usually muster, counting in squaws, children, and all; they were compelled, therefore, to build rows of dummy hunters out of stones, along the ridge-tops which they wished to prevent the sheep from crossing. And, without discrediting the sagacity of the game, these dummies were found effective; for, with a few live Indians moving about excitedly among them, they could hardly be distinguished at a little distance from men, by any one not in the secret. The whole ridge-top then seemed to be alive with hunters.

> Hither come the San Gabriel lads and lassies, to gather ferns and dabble away their hot holidays in the cool water, glad to escape from their commonplace palm-gardens and orange-groves. The delicate maidenhair grows on fissured rocks within reach of the spray, while broad-leaved maples and sycamores cast soft, mellow shade over a rich profusion of bee-flowers, growing among boulders in front of the pool—the fall, the flowers, the bees, the ferny rocks, and leafy shade forming a charming little poem of wildness, the last of a series extending down the flowery slopes of Mount San Antonio through the rugged, foam-beaten bosses of the main Eaton Canon. ( )

“Then it seemed to me the Sierra should be called not the Nevada, or Snowy Range, but the Range of Light” p. 3

1st Edition/first print with #1 at bottom of page 1. Original brown/tan cloth binding with decorative gilt and green stamping, TEG, Octavo. Pages clean, book tight and square. Includes frontispiece lithograph drawing by J. Folles, 50 halftone illustrations and 2 maps.

Muir's first book composed of fifteen articles dating from 1875. Flora, fauna, geology and splendor of the Sierra Nevada are covered, and brief detours to the Coast Range and the southern San Gabriels. Muir theorized the granite face of the Sierra had been shaped and scoured by glaciers, an idea rejected by Josiah Whitney and other geologists of Muir's day. Time vindicated Muir, as it has his book, The Mountains of California remains one of California's most popular works of natural history.
Kimes 189, Zamorano 56, BAL 14746.

I don't know what I was expecting, but not this. I found this to be a total slog. Endless reeling off of names of plants. Describing everything as "indescribable". Anthropomorphization run amok. ( )

John Muir spent decades trekking and exploring the magnificent nature of the United States, particularly california, British Columbia and Alaska. He turned to wrriting about his observations relatively late in life, using his notebooks and memories. The mountains of California (1894) was the first of his writing to appear in book form. It is included in Penguin Books series of Classics.

To Muir, the beauty of nature was a manifestation of God, and the nature of the United States overwhelmed him more than anything else. When Muir came to the States, much of that natural wealth was also still in pristine condition, and as danger crept in to destroy or threaten that, towrads the end of his life Muir became a great conservationalist, born out of the great naturalist he had been all his life.

The mountains of California describes nature in extatic and exhalted language. The first chapters are devoted to the landscape, and how the landscape was formed. Throughout his life, John Muir was fascinated by glaciers, and he was one of the first to realize how glaciers had sculpted the landscape, and how through their workings the great forms of mountains, valleys and lakes had come about, tens of thousands of years ago.

The largest part of the book is devoted to the forests. Muir had trained as a botanist, and this particular interest in shown in the devotion and detail with which he described the trees found on the mountains. Unlike some of his later books, Muir uses very little Latin in The mountains of California, and most plants and trees are known by their common English names. The book is mainly descriptive, and on very few occasions anecdotes are included, which make his later works so attractive. The two most endearing chapters are about the Douglas squirrel and the American Dipper, or Water Ouzel, as Muir preferred to call him.

In The mountains of California Muir clearly tries to find words to describe the magnificence of nature in ever changing and ever original ways. Muir had excellent observation skills and sensitivity to note every fragrance, sound or feature of the landscape. He also makes the reader feel how much time and experience is collected in his observations: Muir spent decades to explore and record. Thus, many of his observations come across as deeply-felt emotions.

To express himself in myriad forms, Muir uses a broad vocabulary. The mountains of California does not only express the richness and wealth of natural beauty, but is also a pleasure to read in that the text is a rich pattern. ( )