Creator
John Muir
Recipient
[Louie Strentzel Muir]
Transcription
[in margin: My heart aches not to go home ere I have done my work but to just know that you are well. Your affectionate husband John Muir][4]
We are drifting in the harbor among cakes of ice about the size of the orchard, but they can do us no harm, the great mtns forming the walls are covered with snow yet except on a few bare spots near their bases & there is not a single tree scarce a hint of any spring or summer have I seen since leaving San Francisco & the orchard – I hope you will see Mr Millard, you must keep Annie [Hand at?] down stairs or she may fall, & now my wife & child [Doctor?] & mother I must bid goodbye Heaven bless you all. Send copes of my Bulletin letters to my mother & put this letter with my papers & notebooks. You will get many other letters now that the whalers are returning. [in margin: in circle 17]]
[1]
Plover Bay, Siberia, June 16th, 1881.
My beloved wife, We leave this harbor tomorrow morning at 6 oclock for St Michael & then northward. The Carwin is in perfect condition & since the season promises to be a favorable one we hope to find the Jeanette & get home this fall. I have not yet seen the American shore but hope to see it very thouroughly as everything seems to work towards my objects. That the Asiatic & American continents were one a very short geological time ago is already clear to me though I shall probably obtain much more available proof
[Page 2]
[2]
than I now have. This is a grand fact. While the crystal glaciers were creating Yosemite Valley a thousand were uniting here to make Behring Strait & Behring Sea. The south side of the Alentian [chain?] of islands was the boundary of the continent & the ocean. Since the Tom Pope came into the harbor I have written five Bulletin letters which are for you mostly & therefore I need the less to write any detailed narrative of the cruise She will sail at the same hour as we do, & her Captain Mr Millard who has been many times in the Arctic both here & on the Greenland
[3]
side has promised to make you a visit, & will be able to give you much information. If I could only get a line one word from you to know that you were all well I would be content to wait the end of the voyage with patience & fortitude But my dear its terrible at times to have to endure in so long a dark silence We will not be likely to get a word before September No doubt you have already received the six or seven letters that I sent from Oonalaska & St Paul, also the two or three Bulletin letters fromOonalaska, Write to Bartlett or the office for a [day?] copies of each & save them for me.
01012
Location
Plover Bay, Siberia
Date Original
1881 Jun 16
Source
Original letter dimensions: 20 x 25 cm.
Recommended Citation
Muir, John, "Letter from John Muir to [Louie Strentzel Muir], 1881 Jun 16." (1881). John Muir Correspondence (PDFs). 654.
https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/muir-correspondence/654
Resource Identifier
muir04_0615-md-1.pdf
File Identifier
Reel 04, Image 0614
Collection Identifier
Online finding aid for the microform version of the John Muir Correspondence http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0w1031nc
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, click here to view the Holt-Atherton Special Collections policies.
Owning Institution
Holt-Atherton Special Collections, University of the Pacific Library. 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
Pages
2 pages
Keywords
Environmentalist, naturalist, travel, conservation, national parks, John Muir, Yosemite, California, history, correspondence, letters
