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Editor's Note
THE papers brought together
in this volume have, in a general way, been arranged in chronological
sequence. They span a period of twenty-nine years of Muir's life, during
which they appeared as letters and articles, for the most part in
publications of limited and local circulation. The Utah and Nevada sketches,
and the two San Gabriel papers, were contributed, in the form of letters, to
the San Francisco Evening Bulletin toward the end of the seventies. Written
in the field, they preserve the freshness of the author's first impressions
of those regions. Much of the material in the chapters on Mount Shasta first
took similar shape in 1874. Subsequently it was rewritten and much expanded
for inclusion in Picturesque California, and the Region West of the Rocky
Mountains, which Muir began to edit in 1888. In the same work appeared the
description of Washington and Oregon. The charming little essay "Wild Wool"
was written for the Overland Monthly in 1875. "A Geologist's Winter Walk" is
an extract from a letter to a friend, who, appreciating its fine literary
quality, took the responsibility of sending it to the Overland Monthly
without the author's knowledge. The concluding chapter on "The Grand Caņon
of the Colorado" was published in the Century Magazine in 1902, and exhibits
Muir's powers of description at their maturity.
Some of these papers were
revised by the author during the later years of his life, and these
revisions are a part of the form in which they now appear. The chapters on
Mount Shasta, Oregon, and Washington will be found to contain occasional
sentences and a few paragraphs that were included, more or less verbatim, in
The Mountains of California and Our National Parks. Being an important part
of their present context, these paragraphs could not be omitted without
impairing the unity of the author's descriptions.
The editor feels confident
that this volume will meet, in every way, the high expectations of Muir's
readers. The recital of his experiences during a storm night on the summit
of Mount Shasta will take rank among the most thrilling of his records of
adventure. His observations on the dead towns of Nevada, and on the Indians
gathering their harvest of pine-nuts, recall a phase of Western life that
has left few traces in American literature. Many, too, will read with
pensive interest the author's glowing description of what was one time
called the New Northwest. Almost inconceivably great have been the changes
wrought in that region during the past generation. Henceforth the landscapes
that Muir saw there will live in good part only in his writings, for fire,
axe, plough, and gunpowder have made away with the supposedly boundless
forest wildernesses and their teeming life.
WILLIAM FREDERIC BADE
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
May, 1918
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