2,333 research outputs found
The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2001/2002
No full textVolume 12, Number 1 NEWSLETTER John Muir\u27s Travels to South America and Africa by Michael P. Branch, University of Nevada, Reno (Continued from the Summer/Fall issue. Excerpted from Michael Branch\u27s new book, John Muir\u27s Last Journey: South to the Amazon and East to Africa; Unpublished Journal and Selected Correspondence. Copyright © 2001 by Island Press. Published by Island Press/Shearwater Books, Washington, D.C, and Covelo, California. All rights reserved. Hardcover $27.50. ISBN 1-55963-640-8. To order John Muir\u27s Last Journey, please call Island Press at (800) 828-1302, or place your order at the Island Press website, www.islandpress.org ve had a most glorious time on this trip, dreamed of nearly half a century — have seen more than a thousand miles of the noblest of Earth\u27s streams and gained far more telling views of the wonderful forests than I ever hoped for. — John Muir to Katharine Hooker, written from the Amazon delta, September 19, 1911 V. The Most Fruitful Year of My Life During his eight-month journey to South America and Africa, Muir recorded his observations in three pocket- sized travel journals, with a fourth small journal book devoted to notes gleaned from his reading of books and pamphlets about the botany, zoology, and geology of the two hot continents. Like his earliest extant journal, which records the thousand-mile walk to the Gulf, this last of Muir\u27s sixty extant journals was carried with him through forest and field, and includes both precise scientific observations and general philosophical ruminations. In addition to written descriptions of flora, fauna, and landscapes both wild and domestic, the journals are also replete with field drawings of the mountains, sunsets, and, especially, the rare trees Muir felt so privileged to witness during his journey; here, in delicate pencil sketches that are sometimes as small as a thumbnail and rarely larger than a playing card, Muir has left minute renderings of towering peaks, sweeping savannas, and gigantic ancient trees. That his techniques of observation and engagement with nature were visual as well as textual is suggested by the number of sketches included — more than 160 — and by their organic relationship to the text: the journal pages typically combine written and pictorial representations in referential association. These journals allow us to travel with Muir as he journeys up the great Amazon, into the jungles of Southern Brazil, to the snowline in the Andes, through South and Central Africa to the headwaters of the Nile, and across six oceans and seas in order to reach the rare forests he had so long wished to study. In their words and images, Muir\u27s journals provide us a rare opportunity not only to see what Muir sees, but also to see how he sees — to glimpse not only the wild and domestic landscapes of the southern continents, but also to see how the fully mature John Muir observed, considered, and represented the beauty of the equatorial and subequatorial regions to which he made his final pilgrimage. Despite their tremendous value and importance, Muir\u27s 1911-12 travel journals have received very little attention, and until now this material has remained unpublished. Why have we ignored Muir\u27s international travels, and how do the journals from his South America and Africa voyage help us to achieve a more complete and more nuanced view of Muir\u27s life and character? One important reason we have largely ignored Muir\u27s travels may be that we like to think of Muir as someone whose wanderings imaginatively chart our American wilderness. While this identification with Muir as an (continued on page 3 ) U N I V E R S I T Y OF page 1 P A C I F I C
News & Notes Editor\u27s Note: With this issue we inaugurate volume 12 \u27 of the John Muir Newsletter. Readers should note that volume 11 was completed in Fall 2001 with a double issue, as we combined #3 and #4. Apologies for our failure to indicate that fact clearly. MUIR BIRTHPLACE TRUST REPLIES TO ITS CRITICS The John Muir Newsletter received a letter in November, 2001, after our critical e-mail to the Trust in response to published reports concerning its plans for Muir\u27s boyhood home. The letter from the Trust reads in part as follows: Allow me to reassure you that we do not propose the destruction of an historic interior. You may not be aware of the extent to which [the building] was gutted in 1980 — all of the floors of the old building were removed and replaced in new positions and a steel frame was inserted to support the new internal structure. .. The top floor museum was created in 1980 using modern materials. As there was no historical infonnation on which to base a reconstruction, the top floor museum space was given the appearance of a domestic interior of the nineteenth century. When considering how we should develop the whole house for the 21s1 century, the John Muir Birthplace Trust decided that constructing what could be called \u27mock heritage\u27 would be misleading and would do little to inform visitors about who John Muir was and why his work was so important. What we decided to do is to take out all of the modern interior inserted in 1980 to expose whatever features of the original 18th Century building could be found... . . .our focus will be on telling the story of John Muir, his boyhood in Dunbar, his work in America and his legacy for the future. Our commitment to this approach dates back to the founding of the Trust and has been clearly outlined in all of our fundraising literature. One of our reasons for choosing an approach other than the construction of a typical period home is the surprising extent to which John Muir is unknown in the country of his birth. Whilst those who already know about John Muir might prefer to see something with the appearance of a nineteenth century home, this would not allow us to tell the story of Muir, his ideas and the importance of his legacy to those who have no prior knowledge of him. Communicating with the people of Scotland is our main concern and the need to engage and excite the interest of our core audience was a key consideration when deciding on the approach to be taken. We will use some modem technology to achieve this just as Muir did when developing his own ingenious machines. But we will also use a range of other media including simple techniques and lo-tech interactive exhibits. . . I hope this further information is of interest to you and provides you with a better insight into our aims and objectives. . .Further detailed infonnation is available at our website atjmbt.org.uk which will be updated as the project progresses; the Trust can be contacted by e-mail: [email protected] ON A MUIR DESCENDANT John Muir\u27s great-grandson, Michael Muir, 49, has lately made the news. He is the founder of Driving for the Disabled, an organization headquartered in Maryland. Michael Muir has been afflicted with multiple sclerosis since he was a teen, and he is by profession a horse breeder. He has combined those facts, and spearheaded an organization which introduces the sport of driving horses to those who are physically unable to ride a horse. The sport of combined driving involves maneuvering a horse-drawn carriage through three types of courses. To publicize the sport, he and two friends spent most of the year 2001 driving across the United States in a horse-drawn carriage pulled by two Stonewall sport horses. They completed the trip in November in Washington, D.C, although Michael Muir was hospitalized a couple of times along the way due to M.S. flare-ups. The expenses of the journey were handled by some donations and the remainder was paid by Muir himself. He is hoping to raise funds for such a drive across the British Isles this year, starting in southern England, driving up to John Muir\u27s birthplace, and ending in the Muir Wilderness area of Scotland. Michael Muir has been unable to ride a horse for over a decade now, but he was a bronze medalist for the United States at the 1998 Drivers With Disabilities World Championships in Germany. I\u27ve always been restless in one place, he said. I\u27m like my great-grandfather in that respect. It\u27s important for me to get out and explore. I like to be a part of the big world (continued page 8) NEWSLETTER Volume 12, Number 1 Winter 2001/02 Published quarterly bv The John Muir Center for Environmental Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211 ♦ Staff ♦ Editor Sally M. Miller Production Assistants ... Marilyn Norton, Pearl Piper All photographic reproductions are courtesy of the John Muir Papers, Holt-Atherton Department of Special Collections, University of the Pacific Libraries. Copyright 1984 Muir-Hanna Trust. This Newsletter is printed on recycled paper. page 2
John Muir\u27s Travels to South America and Africa by Michael P. Branch American nature writer, explorer, and preservationist is understandable, Muir\u27s international travels and nature studies remind us that his allegiance was not to Wisconsin, California, or America, but to Earth. Even before the South America and Africa journey Muir\u27s literary ambitions encompassed his international travels, and he affirmed in a letter of March, 1911 that among the books he earnestly planned to write were two or three on travels abroad. As the inscription to the first extant travel journal of the wanderer — as Muir often called himself— so powerfully reminds us, his address was not Yosemite Valley, California, but John Muir, Earth - planet, Universe. The journals of Muir\u27s last journey clearly show that his appreciation for natural beauty and his desire to study plants in their native habitats transcended national borders. So, too, his environmental concern, as when he laments that the Andean forests are being rapidly destroyed by comparing the effects of irresponsible timber practices in Chile to those he has seen in other parts of the world. Dry limbs and brush are piled around every tree and the burning goes on until nothing but black monuments are left of all the flowery leafy woods, he wrote. Only on a small scale can even New Zealand show equal tree desolation. And so, too, his work as a natural scientist, for Muir so loved rocks and ice and trees that he would seek them in any wilderness, including the noble palmy ice land of the subequatorial jungle. The various and precise tree studies contained in these journals demonstrate that Muir was an accomplished botanist whose impressive expertise and passion led to successful botanical studies far beyond the Range of Light. It is also likely that those interested in Muir have hesitated to examine the 1911-12 materials because they are the record of an old man\u27s experiences. Societal preference for youth and vigor has perhaps predisposed us to freeze Muir in visions of a young man who scaled cliffs and rode avalanches. Although Muir was almost thirty when he first saw Yosemite, in his mid-fifties when he founded the Sierra Club and published his first book, and even older during several of his voyages to Alaska, we persist in imagining him primarily as the indefatigable mountaineer, crucified on the face of Mt. Ritter or meditating in freezing sublimity on Mt. Shasta. When we do tell the story of the older Muir, our narrative is too often limited to the Hetch Hetchy battle, and to a narrow account of that battle which martyrs Muir to the cause of wilderness preservation by attributing his death to the loss of the treasured valley. Perhaps it is to Muir\u27s credit that he has achieved a form of eternal youth in our collective imagination. Like Thoreau, Muir often appeals to the idealized part of each us that would be strong, wild, independent, holy, and free of the corruption — if not also the responsibility — of civilized life. It is also the case that our preference for the image of a youthful Muir is conditioned by Muir\u27s own oeuvre, since the books he published during his lifetime — including, notably, his autobiography — are based primarily upon experiences and journals of the young Muir. Nevertheless, picturing Muir only on summits and in treetops endorses a cult of youth that deprives us of a full understanding of his accomplishments as a person, writer, and naturalist. Even if we prefer not to think of it, Muir did travel in trains, steamships, and automobiles, and he did grow old and feel the weakening in his body, and he did suffer from the loss of his wife and the death of many of his closest friends. But one of the lessons of Muir\u27s 1911-12 journals and correspondence is that he also bore up under the weight of these losses and troubles with remarkable strength of body and character. That the seventy-three- year-old Muir chose to undertake this ambitious voyage to South America and Africa alone — and that he did so with such vigor, passion, pleasure, and success — suggests a courage and independence every bit as impressive as the youthful strength we are more accustomed to associating him with. The South America and Africa journals help us to see Muir as a different kind of hero, one whose endurance and intellectual curiosity carried him into far fields of adventure even as he aged. Corollary to our hesitancy in thinking of Muir as an old man is our hesitancy in thinking of him as a social man — a person whose connections with family and friends were deep and earnest. For many, the name John Muir conjures visions of a man who preferred to be alone, who loathed to leave the woods for the defilement of civilization, and who, with a blanket and a little bread and tea, could exist apart from and above the emotional connections that bind humanity together. One of the contributions of Muir\u27s South America and Africa journals — and, especially, his correspon- dence — from the voyage is that they remind us of what a loving man Muir was, how genuinely he missed his family and worried about their well-being, how deeply attached he was to his daughters and his grandchildren, how generous he was with the many people for whom he cared. Muir did travel alone on his last voyage, but he also met and befriended many fellow travelers whose company and hospitality he enjoyed. He did value solitary nature study, but he also frequently admitted that he felt lonely and far from home. Muir\u27s late journals and correspondence re- humanize Muir by reminding us that he was a brother, husband, father, grandfather, friend, neighbor, orchardist, and businessman, as well as a scientist, adventurer, and writer — not just an iconic representative of American wilderness but a fully developed human being with genuine affections, ambitions, and fears. These South America and Africa journals also make a valuable contribution to our understanding of Muir\u27s literary style and aesthetic sensibility, and they introduce a provocatively-wide range of literary subjects. Although — and in part because — the 1911 -12 j ournals were never finally crafted for publication, they demonstrate the spontaneous energy and insight of Muir\u27s field observa- page 3
John Muir\u27s Travels to South America and Africa by Michael P. Branch tions. Written from train cars and steamer decks, houses and hotels, parks and botanical gardens, and the deep jungles, forests, and swamps that Muir described as places according to my heart, these daily observations and sketches show us Muir in the field rather than at his desk — in the moment rather than in the mode of literary retrospection that so frequently characterizes his often heavily revised published work. The Haiku-like compression and intensity of some of Muir\u27s brief journal notes often suggests an aesthetic and literary sensibility that differs provocatively from that of the effusive wilderness psalmist of the early Sierra journals. The 1911-12 journals also expand Muir\u27s literary subject, for they provide us an unusual opportunity to examine his impressions of tropical rather than temperate flora, equatorial rather than northern glacial geology, and human culture rather than strictly natural history. He delights in the fecundity and impenetrable verdure of the Amazonian rainforests, despite the fact that his contemporaries associated the region primarily with malaria and man-eating reptiles. He remarks on the kindness of the South American people, and is constantly appreciative of the generosity of the traveling companions he meets along his way. As a glaciologist and geologist he expresses his joy at finding so clear and noble a manifestation of ice- work at sea level so near the Equator, where he is thrilled to discover glacier domes feathered with palms instead of hemlocks and spruces and pines. In Africa he hunts not for big game, as did his friend Theodore Roosevelt, but for the bigger game of the rare, immense baobab tree, noting appreciatively after having at last found a representative of the species, that he had enjoyed one of the greatest of the great tree days of my lucky life. The various ocean voyages that were part of Muir\u27s last journey also give us an opportunity to read Muir\u27s descriptions of seascapes rather than landscapes, the latter of which comprise the vast majority of his nature writing. His descriptions of dolphins, whales, seals, seabirds, flying fish, and ocean waves, light, and storms provide interesting insights into his nautical travel experiences and the aesthetic sensibility through which he understood and represented those experiences. VI. Traveling the Milky Way When he set out for the Amazon in the summer of 1911, Muir commented to friends that [t]he world\u27s big, and I want to have a good look at it before it gets dark (Wolfe, Son 331). And near the end of his journey, he unequivocally affirmed that I\u27ve had the most fruitful time of my life on this pair of hot continents. As for the landscapes, plants, and animals he felt so privileged to have seen on his journey, he wrote happily that the new beauty stored up is far beyond telling. When John Muir arrived back in New York in late March, 1912, he had been away for seven and a half months, during which time he had traveled 40,000 miles, sailed for 109 days, crossed the equator six times, and studied the rivers, jungles, forests, plains, mountains, and rare trees of the southern continents he had longed to see. We all travel the milky way together, trees and men, Muir once wrote, after riding out a Sierra windstorm in the wildly pitching crown of a towering Douglas Fir. Trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense, he philosophized. They make many journeys, not extensive ones, it is true; but our own little journeys, away and back again, are only little more than tree-wavings — many of them not so much {Mountains 256). Muir, a man who traveled to trees and who felt trees travel, thought of his own wanderings as a motion as natural and exhilarating as the tossing of a spruce crown in the wind; his own tree-wavings had taken him through the wilds of South America and Africa and brought him home safely to California on his seventy-fourth birthday. Less than three years after reUrrning from his last journey, John Muir\u27s long, productive life came to an end; and when he died, peacefully, on Christmas Eve, 1914, some of his voluminous unpublished manuscripts lay within his reach. When Muir left Indianapolis in September, 1867, with his sight restored and his vision of life clarified, he was bound for the Amazon. When he arrived there in September, 1911, after the forty-four year detour that became most of his adult life, he at last fulfilled a very dear and nearly lifelong dream. And if the first of his extant journals had begun with the orienting declaration, John Muir, Earth - planet, Universe, his final journal, here excerpted for the first time, affirms that the pledge Muir once made in blindness was faithfully kept, and that he remained, until the end, a student, lover, and citizen of Earth. Works Cited Note: All undocumented quotations are from John Muir\u27s Last Journey. Clarke, James Mitchell. The Life and Adventures of John Muir. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1979. Bade, William Frederic, ed. Introduction to A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf, by John Muir. 1916. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1992. Branch, Michael P., ed. Introduction to John Muir\u27s Last Journey: South to the Amazon and East to Africa. Washington, D.C: Island, 2001. Muir, John. John Muir\u27s Last Journey: South to the Amazon and East to Africa. Ed. Michael P. Branch. Washington, D.C: Island, 2001. — The Mountains of California. 1894. New York: Dorset, 1988. — The Stoiy of My Boyhood and Youth. 1913. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1989. — A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf. Ed. William Frederic Bade. 1916. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1992. Wolfe, Linnie Marsh. Son of the Wilderness: The Life of John Muir. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1945. page 4
Muir at Hazel Green By Howard R. Cooley From the cool breezy heights you look abroad over a boundless waving sea of evergreens, covering hill and ridge and smooth-flowing slope as far as the eye can reach. John Muir, Our National Parks, 1901 Historically, local place names have often been applied to general geographic regions as well. For example, in California the name Mariposa (Spanish for butterfly) originally described a vast territory south of the Merced- Tuolumne divide within the Central Valley. Later, it was used to name a foothill gold-rush town and then a county.1 Near Yosemite, the name Hazel Green has been applied to a dividing ridge at an elevation of 5,665 feet. In My First Summer in the Sierra (1911), John Muir wrote that upon departing camp on the North Fork of the Merced River below Pilot Peak on July 8, 1869, the sheep herders wit
John Muir Newsletter, Winter 1990/1991
No full textJohn Muir Newsletter winter, 1990-1991 JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER REVIVED The John Muir Center for Regional Studies at the University of thePacific is very pleased to begin republication of the John Muir Newsletter. The first newsletter under this title ran six years and ended with the publication of the John Muir Papers (microform edition) in 1986. The current quarterly Newsletter will be published in fall and spring of each year, starting with this fall 1990 issue. The Newsletter will serve as a clearing house of information on John Muir, publications and events concerning Muir and his legacy, news of the environment, appropriate book reviews and announcements, short features and other items of interest. Its pages will be open to anyone who wishes to share such news and information with the readers of the Newsletter. Its success will, therefore, very much depend on the support it receives from its readers. If readers send in their news and announcements, the Newsletter will allow Muir enthusiasts to keep in contact with each other and with events in which they have a mutual interest. The John Muir Center takes great pride in aiding the work which Muir undertook of enhancing awareness of the environment. In that spirit, the Center will be delighted to receive any appropriate news, notices, anecdotes, graphics and environment-related information. Deadlines for submissions are January 1, April 1, July 1 and October 1. The editor will make final decisions on acceptance of submissions.This first issue of the Newsletter is available free to interested parties, and will be sent to past participants of the California History Institute. Subsequent issues will be distributed to subscribers only. If you wish to continue receiving this publication, see subscription information on page five. CONTENTS Gold Rush Theme for CHI 1991 2 John Muir\u27s Trust in Wilderness 2 Another Muir Monograph Nears Publication 3 Yosemite Celebrates 4 John Muir Center One Year Later 4 new series, volume 1 number 1 YOSEMITE AND SEQUOIA PARKS FEATURED The Summer 1990 issue of California History, the quarterly journal of the California Historical Society, is devoted to the subject of Yosemite and Sequoia: A Century of California National Parks. Guest editor of the special issue is Alfred Runte, distinguished historian of the national parks and author of a recently-published history of Yosemite. The richly illustrated, expanded issue includes an introductory essay by Runte, an historical overview of preservation and resource management at Sequoia and King\u27s Canyon by Lary M. Dilsaver and Douglas H. Strong, a piece by Peter J. Blodgett on tourism in Yosemite, a study of 19th century Yosemite painters and photographers by Kate Nearpass Ogden, an article by Anne F. Hyde on early tourist travel, a biographical essay on Joseph Grinnell by Runte, a study of Yosemite\u27s built environment before 1940 by Robert C. Pavlik, and an article by Lary Dilsaver on the founding of Kings Canyon National Park. Copies of this special issue are available by mail for 2.50 postage) from the California Historical Society, 2090 Jackson Street, San Francisco, 94109.
GOLD MINING THE THEME OF THE 1991 CALIFORNIA HISTORY INSTITUTE California\u27s Gold Rushes: Past and Present is the focus for the 1991 California History Institute. Sponsored by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies and scheduled for April 18-21, 1991 at the University of the Pacific, the event will feature two days of academic sessions, followed by a two-day field trip with an overnight stay at one of Northern California\u27s early railroad resorts, Feather River Inn. While the Gold Rush of 1848-1856 was California\u27s first and best-known mining excitement, CHI 91 program committee members invite suggestions for a program which moves beyond the popular stereotype to consider gold mining in broad perspective both in space and time. From the 1850s to the present day, successive rushes have dotted the map with boom towns or other sporadic signs of mineral excitement. The events themselves, the forces and personalities behind them, the short and long rang impacts of California\u27s economy, environment, culture, politics, people, and image at home and abroad—these are some of the topics that may be covered in sessions on the UOP campus. As with previous Institutes over the past 43 years, Conference organizers encourage participation from anyone interested in the theme regardless of academic background or point of view. Sessions are open to participants and presenters from all relevant disciplines, including those in humanities, social science, environmental studies, technology the arts and other fields. Non-academics from the mining industry, service organizations, related businesses, government, and the general public are also welcome to submit proposals or to register as participants and guests. Those interested in more information should contact Professor R.H. Limbaugh, Director, John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211. TPDTT^nTi l\\ JOHN MUIR NEWSLETTER Vol. I, No. 1, (new series) Published quarterly by the John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, 3601 Pacific Ave., Stockton, CA 95211. Staff Editor: Sally M. Miller Center Director: R. H. Limbaugh Graphic Artist Jane Sunter JOHN MUIR\u27S IN WILDERNESS By Terry Isles (excerpted by permission from The Countryman, (Western Australia), vol. 94 number 3) In 1984 the John Muir Trust was founded at Dunbar, Scotland, site of Muir\u27s birth in 1838. The Trust is ^ to conserve and protect wilderness, while respecting the needs of those living in such area.\u27 The trust now owns some 3,000 acres of superlative mountain country on the Knoydart peninsula in the west Highlands, accessible only by sea or on foot. Despite the remoteness, a small number of people live and work there, engaged in traditional activities such as sheep-farming and newer ones such as shellfish-farming. Rising from the shores of the fiord-like sea-loch to the highest point of Ladhar Bheinn at 3,350 ft., the land contains a wide range of habitats. However, it is classified as a degraded landscape, and it is the trust\u27s intention, after careful surveys, to bring it back to its full ecological potential. This will mean a lot of effort by volunteers, as well as considerable expense. For further information, write to Freepost, John Muir Trust, Edinburgh. ANOTHER JOHN MUIR MONOGRAPH NEARS PUBLICATION The John Muir Center for Regional Studies is currently preparing for publication a volume based on the proceedings of the 1990 California History Institute which was devoted to the life and work of John Muir. The Institute, one of the most successful in the forty-three years in which these annual conferences have been held, drew over two hundred participants. More than thirty presentations in a dozen sessions were conducted over a three-day period on the campus of the University of the Pacific. At the conclusion of that portion of the Institute, many of the participants went on a field trip to Yosemite National Park for the weekend, where they celebrated John Muir\u27s birthday and Earth Day.
The monograph, John Muir and His Legacy, will include revised versions of many of the Institute presentations. It is anticipated that perhaps two-thirds of the original presentations will be represented in the monograph. The monograph will include chapters on Muir\u27s biography and on Muir and his various interests such as botany, geology, religion, literature and conservation. Several publishers are interested in reviewing the completed manuscript when it is ready. The monograph will be handsomely illustrated and is one which any reader of the Newsletter will be anxious to own. JOHN MUIR LIBRARY CONSERVED In 1987 the Holt-Atherton Library received 55.07 per book. Scholars now have full access to this rich working library that contains perhaps the most extensive holographic notations within any collection of its kind. WE NEED NEWS! To keep abreast of research, publications, events, and ideas among Muir scholars and friends, we need input from our readers. Please send us information that we can share with others. Some specific items of interest: news of ongoing or new research; recent publications of interest; announcements of forthcoming events; environmental issue updates; letters of general interest or concern; book reviews; short essays. All copy for consideration should be mailed directly to Professor Sally M. Miller, Editor, John Muir Newsletter, Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211. Unsolicited material cannot be returned. Editorial policy and review remain the prerogative of the editorial staff. [R CONFERE] VIDEO PRODUCTION CONTEMPLATED At the Muir Conference in April a professional camera crew taped over half of the sessions and recorded a half- dozen interviews by participants from sessions not otherwise taped. Most of the slides from session programs were also taped separately, to be dubbed in later. That was Phase I of a project designed to yield eventually a series of video-cassettes for the academic market. Funding for Phase I, amounting to several thousand dollars, was provided by a grant from a private donor and from the Uni- versity\u27s Office of Life-long Learning. Phase II, the editing of the raw footage, is now in the planning stages. A new fund-raising effort will be required to complete the project. We will issue a progress report in our next issue. Any suggestions for obtaining the necessary funding will be appreciated. YOSEMITE CELEBRATES ITS TENNIAL \u27W. As is well known, the year 1990 marks the centennial of the law establishing Yosemite National Park. The centennial has been marked with many programs at the Park, some of which had to be canceled during the third week in July when the park was evacuated and closed for a week because of an enormous fire. Talks, concerts, and other events have been held in order to underline a century of increasing consciousness of the environment and the need for even more extensive recognition of the preservation ethic. Recent programs have included a portrayal by Thomas Smith of West Valley College in Saratoga, California, of Sgt. Carruthers whose military career included service in Tuolumne Meadows when the United States Cavalry was responsible for management of the national park in its earliest days. Reporter Gene Rose, who has covered both Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks for the Fresno Bee for
many years, gave a talk on preservation and the role of the media. The Superintendent of Yosemite National Park, Mike Finley, spoke on the evolution of park management over the seventy-four years of the existence of the National Park Service. Concerts have included one by the United States Air Force Band of the Golden West. Another featured music inspired by Yosemite by musician Rick Erlien who back- packed with a keyboard, composing as he went. Over the summer, Lee Stetson performed his well- known one-man show as John Muir. He also presented a stage show entitled Stickeen in which Muir has a number of encounters with those he called his fellow mortals. The famous Muir story of the little dog named Stickeen with whom Muir was trapped on a glacier in Alaska was highlighted. A third show offered by Stetson was called \u27 \u27The Spirit of John Muir— A Centennial Celebration. As a special event, a time capsule was buried in front of the Yosemite Valley Visitor Center which is intended to be opened on the bicentennial of the park, October 1, 2090. THE JOHN MUIR CENTER ONE YEAR LATER Only a year ago the John Muir Center for Regional Studies was established to promote research into Muir\u27s life and legacy, to foster regional studies from a multi- disciplinary viewpoint, to build closer relationships between regional scholars and the lay community, to encourage out-of-classroom learning experiences, to provide opportunities for undergraduate research, and to publish the results of qualitative regional research. These general objectives were to be achieved through annual conferences with a regional thematic emphasis, a special publications program that would include a newsletter and a monograph series, periodic seminars and workshops for the UOP campus community, grant projects to raise special funds for regional research and publication, and course offerings with a regional component or emphasis. Looking back 12 months into the program is perhaps too early to assess its impact or accomplishments, yet we think we have earned a few high marks. The Muir Conference and Field Trip in April, by all accounts, was an outstanding event that underscored the educational value of bringing together specialists and the general public in a critical mass of interested people focused on a single subject. The combination of two days of concentrated seminar study, followed by a two-day field trip, demonstrated how well experiential learning can supplement and enliven the passive mode of teaching by lectures and slide- shows. Feedback was so enthusiastic that we have adopted this four-day campus-field format for at least the 1991 California History Institute, if not for the indefinate future. Readers may look forward to another holistic experience in 1991 as the gold rush theme is pursued from a variety of academic dimensions and field observations. During the spring semester of 1990 Professor Ron Limbaugh directed a special undergraduate team research project centering on the Chinese community that occupied Knight\u27s Ferry, California, from the early Gold Rush to the 1920s. Statistical data from court records, tax assessment rolls, manuscript census records and other quantitative resources were directly entered on computer and analyzed with SPSS software to produce a statistical profile of the Chinese community and its economic status. At the same time standard literary sources were combed for corroborative evidence of Chinese social and cultural developments, and students built upon those written records with raw data from oral interviews, photographs and on-site inspection. Although still in the drafting stage, the final result should be a modest but substantive monograph that will be published by the John Muir Center. Very recently the Center concluded an agreement with the Bank of Stockton to inventory and catalog some 30,000 photographs in two significant collections, one of •URCHASERS: THE JOHN MUIR PAPERS ON MICROFILM Anchorage Municipal Library Brigham Young University California State Library Colorado State Library Denver State University Ohio State University Oregon State University Princeton University Schofield, Mr. Edmund Southern Methodist University Texas Tech University University of Arizona University of California, Berkeley (Reels 23-33, 35-50) University of California, Los Angeles (UC System Joint Purchase) University of Minnesota, Minneapolis University of Nevada, Reno University of Oklahoma University of Oregon University of Texas, Ausitin University of the Pacific University of Utah University of Wisconsin, Madison University of Wyoming Yale
which was recently acquired by the Bank to supplement its own historic photo resources. This 15. check made payable to The John Muir Center for Regional Studies, University of the Pacific, 3601 Pacific Ave., Stockton, CA 95211. Yes, I want to join the John Muir Center and continue to receive theJohn Muir Newsletter.. Enclosed is $15 for a one-year membership . Name Institution/Affiliation Mailing address & zip_
NEWS OF OUR READERS Sherry Hanna, John Muir\u27s granddaughter-in-law, writes that Shell Oil Company is erecting a statue of John Muir in Martinez, on the corner of Alhambra Valley Road and Alhambra Avenue. Rather than lose the lot to developers who wanted to construct an office building, the City of Martinez purchased the lot and will maintain it as landscaped open space. S. Michael Hall of the Department of Tourism Management of the School of Resource Science and Management of the University of New England, Australia, reports that his Australian Research Council grant has been renewed. This will enable him to continue work on his project on the significance of John Muir\u27s travels in Australasia in 1903-04 and their role in developing conservation thought. Dr. Hall was a presenter at the California History Institute in April, 1991. He promises to send the Newsletter reports on news of interest from the South Pacific from time to time. Ron Limbaugh recently presented a paper, John Muir as Environmental Educator, at a meeting of the Association of Environmental and Outdoor Educators, held in Yosemite National Park in an outdoor ampitheater with the temperature hovering at a brisk 35 degrees. Muir might have considered it a fine test for any outdoor enthusiast. John Muir Newsletter The John Muir Center For Regional Studies University of the Pacific, Stockton CA, 95211 Non-Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Permit No. 363 Stockton, CA RETURN ADDRESS REQUESTED TIME -DATED MATERIALhttps://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmn/1023/thumbnail.jp
Letter from John Muir to Mrs. W. Taylor Douglas, [1902 Jan ?].
No full text[First draft of letter, in note-book#59] (36)Mrs. W. Taylor Douglas,.[Jan.\u2702].Dear Madam:I thank you for the kind words you send about the wildness on the Atlantic, I would gladly assist you in choosing a home between the mountains and the sea where fruit is abundant, the seasons well marked, and good schools. But this is not easy. You would have to go far N. of S. F. along the coast to find anything like a good sound winter, even as far as Alaska. N. of Cape Mendocino the weather of the winter months is mostly rainy, with scarce a hint of snow until well on toward Fort Wrangel or Sitka. And fruit nowhere does well on the immediate sea coast. There are many charming home valleys a short dist[ance] from the sea S. of S. F. also, and around the bay of S.F. and its branches, and S. ward. I can see the ships on a branch of the bay from my study windows 2 miles distant, let lemons and oranges, figs, grapes, apples, peaches, etc. of finest kind grow in generous abundance. Perhaps you might find some useful hints in my books, The Mountains of California the Cent[ury] Co., and Our National Parks, H[oughton] M[ifflin] Co. But in this state of a thousand climates, with every variety of soil and scenery, savagery and civilization, you must come and choose for yourself.Regretting I can\u27t give a more satisfactory reply,I am,Very truly yours,J.M.02890https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/41823/thumbnail.jp
Letter from John Muir to [William Keith], 1893 Aug 8.
No full textHotel Metropole,London, Aug. 8, 1893.[To Wm. Keith]Dear Willie:Wandering Willie, where in all this confused world of streets, cars, hotel, stations, etc., are you? I got to Liverpool July 1st by the Etruria, and feeling sure you were off to Spain gave up all hope in my infantile loneliness of finding [you]. Most of the time since then I couldn\u27t even find myself, and yet on the whole I\u27ve had a sort of good time. I went to Edinburgh and there David Douglas, a publisher to whom I had a letter, took pity on me and looked after me. Then I sent to Dunbar and found a cousin of the old home and the school where I was thrashed. Thence back to Edinburgh, thence to Dumfries, thence to Stirling and through the Trossachs to Oban, to Leith, and thence to Norway. Had a glorious glacial and other times there. Thence back to Edinburgh and thence to Windermere, Grassmere, etc., a charming region - to Londonf-arrived here yesterday. Tomorrow I start for Switzerland. Then perhaps a little more of the north of Scotland and home. I heard from home to-day. All well. Expect to get back to Edinburgh by the end of this month, perhaps, and home by the end of October.I hope you and Mrs. K. had a good time, but your Scotch or Swedenborgian conscience must have been sore at times. My address till the end of this month is London, Paris, and American Bank Limited. Later it will be David Douglas, 10 Oastlu Street, Edinburgh.Hoping to meet in S. F., I am,Yours,J. Muir707https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/39456/thumbnail.jp
Letter from David Douglas to John Muir, 1907 May 11.
No full text[letterhead]10 Castle StreetEdinburgh May 11 1907My dear John MuirI was f[illegible]d through Mr R[illegible] on Monday last with a [illegible] [specimen?] of Peb[illegible] from [illegible] (numbered 1 to 12) which I sent to one professor of Botany at the Botanical Gardens. Mr [illegible]ley B[illegible] letter acknowledging their receipt is enclosed and I shall send you038702the promised Report when it comes to me.I have to thank you for bearing me personally to remembrance [in?] the beautifully [polished specimen?] which I am using as a letter weight and as often as I use it I shall be bought into touch with you and the Stone Forest of Adamana.I have also written to Mr Murdoch telling him that [his specimen is waiting for him, here the first day he is?]https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmcl/29269/thumbnail.jp
Aspects of identity in the work of Douglas Strachan (1875-1950)
No full textThis thesis explores facets of Scottish identity via the decorative work of Douglas Strachan. Nations and nationalism remain extraordinarily potent phenomena in the contemporary world and this work seeks to examine aspects of Scottish nationhood and cultural identity through Strachan's evocation of history, folklore, religion and myth. It has been argued that these are the chief catalysts for enabling people to define and shape their understanding of themselves and their place within society. Cultural identity is often understood as a passive form of nationalism which is remote from its political counterpart. Yet there are strong arguments to counter this belief. This thesis addresses some of the issues raised by such arguments and adopts an ethno-symbolic approach in order to re-evaluate Strachan's work, and that of his contemporaries. The thesis also develops the theoretical and contextual debates concerning the decorative arts in general and stained glass in particular in order to raise awareness of its merits and its role within our society
Candidate gene studies in psychiatric illness
No full textSchizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression are common, heritable
neuropsychiatric conditions and yet the source of the inherited risk remains largely
unknown. This thesis focuses on two complementary strategies for identifying and
characterising the genetic component of these illnesses: homozygosity mapping in
consanguineous pedigrees, and genetic and neurobiological investigations of candidate
genes identified by the analysis of structural chromosomal abnormalities carried by
patients with psychiatric diagnoses.
In a family of a cousin marriage, five of six offspring presented with a rare combination
of schizophrenia, sensori-neural hearing impairment and epilepsy. Two loci were located
on chromosomes 22q13 and 2p24-25 where a series of markers were homozygous by
descent (HBD). Five further HBD loci were identified in a second, related family where
four of five offspring had hearing loss. However, there was no overlap of the HBD
intervals in the two families, and sequencing coding regions of candidate genes failed to
identify causative mutations.
A second study investigated the candidate gene ABCA13 identified at a breakpoint
region on chromosome 7 in a patient with schizophrenia who carried a complex
chromosomal rearrangement. Re-sequencing exons encoding the highly conserved
functional domains identified eight potentially pathogenic, rare coding variants. Case
control association studies involving cohorts of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and
major depression revealed significant associations of these variants with all three clinical
phenotypes, and follow-up in relatives displayed familial inheritance patterns.
Disruption of ABCA13, expressed in human hippocampus and frontal cortex, implicates
aberrant lipid biology as a pathological pathway in mental illness.
A third study focused on GRIK4, a candidate gene previously reported disrupted in a
patient with schizophrenia who carried a chromosome abnormality. A deletion in the 3’UTR of GRIK4, encoding the kainate receptor subunit KA1, was identified as a
protective factor for bipolar disorder. Using post mortem human brain tissue from
control subjects, KA1 protein expression patterns were characterized in the hippocampal
formation, amygdala, frontal cortex and cerebellum. KA1 expression was found
significantly increased in subjects with the protective allele, supporting the hypothesis
that reduced glutamatergic neurotransmission is a risk factor in major psychiatric
illnesses.
Together, these novel discoveries define aspects of the genetic contribution to mental
illness, implicate specific dysfunctional processes and suggest new directions for
research in the quest to find rationally based treatments and preventative strategies for
some of the most common and disabling psychiatric disorders
Blissful violence ambiguity in Stanley Kubrick's a clockwork orange
No full textDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão. Programa de Pós-Gradução em Letras/Ingrês e Literatura Correspondente.Analise da construção da ambigüidade na narrativa do filme Laranja Mecânica, de Stanley Kubrick (1971). Investiga a relação identificação-afastamento que o filme promove entre o protagonista e o espectador, assim como o modo peculiar como o filme trata a violência. Observa um movimento em direção à ambigüidade que se desenvolve ao longo da obra do diretor, iniciando com estruturas e personagens mais tradicionais, abandonando gradualmente as posições morais seguras. Três filmes são também discutidos como uma amostra da obra do diretor, de modo a traçar a evolução de seu estilo e sua visão de mundo: Dr. Fantástico ou Como Aprendi a Parar de me Preocupar e Amar a Bomba (1963), 2001- Uma Odisséia no Espaço (1968) e De Olhos Bem Fechados (1999)
Original poems and translations. [electronic resource] : By James Beattie, A.M.
No full textReissued in 1761 with a cancel titlepage bearing the imprint: Aberdeen: printed by F. Douglas; and sold by him for the benefit of the author, and in London by A. Millar.Scottish typographyElectronic reproduction.English Short Title Catalog,Reproduction of original from British Library
The Douglas Concept of God in Government
No full textCould it be that the protests provoked by Engel were engendered not so much by what the Court held or by what Mr. Justice Black wrote as they were by the absolutist, all-encompassing sweep of Mr. Justice Douglas\u27 concurring opinion? After all, Mr. Justice Douglas had been the author of accommodations for religion and he had quite clearly and forthrightly proclaimed that We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being. But now in Engel, as though there were more fundamental questions which demanded more fundamental answers, Mr. Justice Douglas suddenly grew half sick of shadows and gave sun-bright answers for just about all our religion problems and unequivocal castigation of all religious customs which are even tenuously related to government. Wrote he, It is customary in deciding a constitutional question to treat it in its narrowest form. Yet at times the setting of the question gives it a form and content which no abstract treatment could give. The point for decision is whether the Government can constitutionally finance a religious exercise. Our system at the federal and state levels is presently honeycombed with such financing. Nevertheless, I think it is an unconstitutional undertaking whatever form it takes
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