Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Charles Sprague] Sargent
Preview
Transcription
6of the trees. Large areas are burned & the ground is strewn with blackened poles. From this terrace the mountain rises in steep slopes. The trees are chiefly spruce & a species of fir (subalpinea). the firs growing highest even dwarfing at a height of about 5000 feet into lowly chaparral. This dwarfing seems to be due as much to heavy snow as to altitude, for at the same elevation on ridges where the snow can never be deep we find both the dwarfed & erect forms close together. This fir forms the most beautiful chaparral I ever saw. The flat thickly foliaged plumes, broad & fan-shaped being imbricated over each other by the pressure of the snow so that the high slopes seem to be neatly & handsomely thatched. In this form it is seldom more than 3 or 4 feet high. Yet it bears fertile cones & seems thrifty & happy as if everything was to its mind. In this dwarfed form it reaches a height of 5500 feet. At a height of 4000 feet few of the erect trees are more than 40 ft high. & one foot in dia at the ground.""The pine & spruce of the region lying
Location
Martinez [Calif.]
Date Original
1897 Nov 16
Source
Original letter dimensions unknown.
Resource Identifier
muir09_1150-let.tif
File Identifier
Reel 09, Image 1150
Copyright Status
Copyrighted
Copyright Statement
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust. To purchase copies of images and/or obtain permission to publish or exhibit them, see http://www.pacific.edu/Library/Find/Holt-Atherton-Special-Collections/Fees-and-Forms-.html )
Owning Institution
Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University Archives, Boston, Massachusetts. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Copyright Holder
Muir-Hanna Trust
Copyright Date
1984
Page Number
Page 6
Keywords
John Muir, correspondence, letters, author, writing, naturalist, California, correspondent, mail, message, post, exchange of letters, missive, notes, epistle
