John Muir was born at Dunbar, Scotland, April 21, 1838, and died at Los Angeles, California, December 24, 1914. He attended school before he had completed his third year of age, but even before this time his grandfather had taught him the letters of the alphabet upon the signs in the vicinity. He remained in the Scotch schools until he was eleven and made most valuable use of his time, as may be judged by his progress, especially in Latin. At the age of eleven he had to leave school to accompany his father to the new home in the forests of Wisconsin.

Upon their arrival in America after a voyage which was to John and his brother one constant round of happy experiences, there was no further opportunity for elementary schooling. His education became that of the toiler and he stored his mind with knowledge acquired from the observation of the plants and animals of the woods and lakes and from the association and study of the animals of the farm. He found opportunity to read the few books which came into his possession, but the strict regulation of the home made him read largely by snatches. His fertile brain was employed almost constantly in the matter of inventions. His duties on the farm comprised all activities from that of cultivating the fields to the building of houses and barns and the digging of wells. In his recent book "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth," he has graphically described his work of digging a well by chiselling for nearly eighty feet through the solid granite.

Muir remained on the farm until he had attained his majority. He then went to the capitol of the state to exhibit some of his wonderful inventions at the State Fair. This experience led to his employment in a shop in Prairie du Chien, where he worked part of the year. He then went to the University, where he earned his way during the four years of his course. He completed his course of study there with the class of 1864, and then, according to his own statement, he plunged immediately into the work of geologist, explorer, and naturalist. His work was quite largely in the Yosemite region of California and among the glaciers of the Sierras and Alaska. In the latter region during the year of 1881 he explored the glacier named after him. It was, however, his description of the Yosemite Valley that first brought him into prominence. He made an extended search for the De Long Arctic exploring party, which was lost in its effort to reach the far North. Later he travelled, part of the time in company with John Burroughs, through Hawaii, Russia, Siberia, Manchuria, India, Australasia, and South America.

No place, however, furnished him with such rich material about which to tell his thoughts as did his adopted home, California, and the newer Alaska. In the later years of his life his residence was at Martinez, California. He was married to Louise Strenzel in 1880. To them was born a daughter, Helen, who still lives in California and who was with her father at the time of his death.

While John Muir's experience as a pioneer in the forests of Wisconsin, reveals the severe hardships of that life, it reveals many of the joys as well, and shows that his active brain was open to all the avenues of self education. Field, forest, and lake were full of opportunities for him to observe and study, and as a result John and his brother, David, were fine naturalists, irrespective of books upon the subject. John's home life was rich in the companionship of brothers and sisters, and his mother was most sympathetic and helpful to him in his aspirations to know and to become the scholar.

The Scotch schools had given him such training as enabled him to use books as tools throughout his life. The necessities of the farm and home drove him to inventing means for getting things done. The result was that he soon became known as a genius, and this inventive work finally opened the way for his entrance into the University. So keen was John's desire to know and to invent that it became necessary for his father to drive him to bed too frequently, so he told the boy that if he wished to study, he should get up in the morning. John took his father at his word and managed to rise at two o'clock morning after morning to work upon his inventions. As a result of such efforts there was made a model of self-setting saw mill, a thermometer, clocks, an apparatus to get him up at the time desired, and later at the University a machine to make visible the growth of plants and the action of sunlight, a barometer, and a desk which automatically threw up, from a rack underneath, each book in the order of his studies during the day and withdrew it again when the time allotted for this study had expired. To accompany this wonderful invention, he furnished his bed with an adjustment that set him on his feet at the morning rising hour and at the same instant lighted his lamp. These seemingly incredible inventions are fully explained in "The Story of My Boyhood and Youth," Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913. So eagerly did he pursue knowledge for its own sake while he was in the University that the old janitor was proud to point out Muir's room to visitors many years after his departure.

So valuable has been the work of this investigating mind that Wisconsin, Harvard, and Yale Universities have deemed it a pleasure to confer upon John Muir honorary degrees. With his entire life devoted to research, he may truthfully be said to have been one of America's best educated men.

He contributed extensively to the organization of scientific clubs and to scientific magazines. He was much interested in forest reservation and did much towards the plans which the government now employs. His work in connection with government regulated parks has been invaluable.

As a writer Muir is one of the most interestingly instructive we have had. His language is clear and lucid and he has a message which he carries directly to the heart and mind of his reader. Besides his many magazine articles he has written the "Mountains of California," 1894; "Our National Parks," 1901; "Stickeen, the Story of a Dog," 1909; "My First Summer in the Sierra," 1911; "The Yosemite," 1912, and the "Story of My Boyhood and Youth," 1913. This last is one of the most interesting and inspiring books for young people that we have today.

The Muir homestead is twelve miles from Portage, Wisconsin. There were two farms, the Spring Fountain farm and the Hickory Hill farm. It is upon the latter that is found the well 90 feet deep, eighty feet of which John chiselled through solid granite.

To illustrate Muir's interesting manner of presenting his observations we are adding the following selections from "The Mountains of California," published by the Century Co.

SNOW BANNERS

Copyrighted by the Century Co., 1894.

The most magnificent storm phenomenon I ever saw, surpassing in showy grandeur the most imposing effects of clouds, floods, or avalanches, was the peaks of the High Sierra, back of Yosemite Valley, decorated with snow-banners. Many of the starry snow-flowers, out of which these banners are made, fall before they are ripe, while most of those that do attain perfect development as six-rayed crystals glint and chafe against one another in their fall through the frosty air, and are broken into fragments. This dry, fragmentary snow is still further prepared for the formation of banners by the action of the wind. For, instead of finding rest at once, like the snow which falls into the tranquil depths of the forests, it is rolled over and over, beaten against rock-ridges, and swirled in pits and hollows, like boulders, pebbles, and sand in the pot-holes of a river, until finally the delicate angles of the crystals are worn off, and the whole mass is reduced to dust. And whenever storm-winds find this prepared snow-dust in a loose condition on exposed slopes, where there is a free upward sweep to leeward, it is tossed back into the sky, and borne onward from peak to peak in the form of banners or cloudy drifts, according to the velocity of the wind and the conformation of the slopes up or around which it is driven. While thus flying through the air, a small portion makes good its escape, and remains in the sky again as vapor. But far the greater part, after being driven into the sky again and again, is at length locked fast in bossy drifts, or in the wombs of glaciers, some of it to remain silent and rigid for centuries before it is finally melted and sent singing down the mountainsides to the sea.

Yet, notwithstanding the abundance of winter snow-dust in the mountains, and the frequency of high winds, and the length of time the dust remains loose and exposed to their action, the occurrence of well-formed banners is, for causes we shall hereafter note, comparatively rare. I have seen only one display of this kind that seemed in every way perfect. This was in the winter of 1873, when the snow-laden summits were swept by a wild "norther." I happened at the time to be wintering in Yosemite Valley, that sublime Sierra temple where every day one may see the grandest sights. Yet even here the wild gala-day of the north seemed surpassingly glorious. I was awakened in the morning by the rocking of my cabin and the beating of pine-burs on the roof. Detached torrents and avalanches from the main wind-flood overhead were rushing wildly down the narrow side canyons, and over the precipitous walls, with loud resounding roar, rousing the pines to enthusiastic action, and making the whole valley vibrate as though it were an instrument being played.

But afar on the lofty exposed peaks of the range standing so high in the sky, the storm was expressing itself in still grander characters, which I was soon to see in all their glory. I had long been anxious to study some points in the structure of the ice-cone that is formed every winter at the foot of the upper Yosemite fall, but blinding spray by which it is invested had hitherto prevented me from making a sufficiently near approach. This morning the entire body of the fall was torn into gauzy shreds, and blown horizontally along the face of the cliff, leaving the cone dry; and while making my way to the top of an overlooking ledge to seize so favorable an opportunity to examine the interior of the cone, the peaks of the Merced group came in sight over the shoulder of the South Dome, each waving a resplendent banner against the blue sky, as regular in form, and as firm in texture, as if woven of fine silk. So rare and splendid a phenomenon, of course, overbore all other considerations, and I at once let the ice-cone go, and began to force my way out of the valley to some dome or ridge sufficiently lofty to command a general view of the main summits, feeling assured that I should find them bannered still more gloriously; nor was I in the least disappointed. Indian Canon, through which I climbed, was choked with snow that had been shot down in avalanches from the high cliffs on either side, rendering the ascent difficult; but inspired by the roaring storm, the tedious wallowing brought no fatigue, and in four hours I gained the top of a ridge above the valley, 8,000 feet high. And there in bold relief, like a clear painting, appeared a most imposing scene. Innumerable peaks, black and sharp, rose grandly into the dark blue sky, their bases set in solid white, their sides streaked and splashed with snow, like ocean rocks with foam; and from every summit, all free and unconfused, was streaming a beautiful, silky, silvery banner, from half a mile to a mile in length, slender at the point of attachment, then widening gradually as it extended from the peak until it was about 1,000 or 1,500 feet in breadth, as near as I could estimate. The cluster of peaks called the "Crown of the Sierra," at the head of the Merced and Tuolumne rivers,—Mounts Dana, Gibbs, Conness, Lyell, Maclure, Ritter, with their nameless compeers,—each had its own refulgent banner, waving with a clearly visible motion in the sun glow, and there was not a single cloud in the sky to mar their simple grandeur. Fancy yourself standing on this Yosemite ridge looking eastward. You notice a strange garish glitter in the air. The gale drives wildly overhead with a fierce, tempestuous roar, but its violence is not felt, for you are looking through a sheltered opening in the woods as through a window. There, in the immediate foreground of your picture, rises a majestic forest of silver fir blooming in eternal freshness, the foliage yellow-green, and the snow beneath the trees strewn with their beautiful plumes, plucked off by the wind. Beyond, and extending over all the middle ground, are somber swaths of pine, interrupted by huge swelling ridges and domes; and just beyond the dark forest you see the monarchs of the High Sierra waving their magnificent banners. They are twenty miles away, but you would not wish them nearer, for every feature is distinct, and the whole glorious show is seen in its right proportions. After this general view, mark how sharply the dark, snowless ribs and buttresses and summits of the peaks are defined, excepting the portions veiled by the banners, and how delicately their sides are streaked with snow, where it has come to rest in narrow flutings and gorges. Mark, too, how grandly the banners wave as the wind is deflected against their sides, and how trimly each is attached to the very summit of its peak, like a streamer at a masthead; how smooth and silky they are in texture, and how finely their fading fringes are penciled on the azure sky. See how dense and opaque they are at the point of attachment, and how filmy and translucent toward the end, so that the peaks back of them are seen dimly, as though you were looking through ground glass. Yet again, observe how some of the longest, belonging to the loftiest summits, stream perfectly free all the way across intervening notches and passes from peak to peak, while others overlap and partly hide each other. And consider how keenly every particle of this wondrous cloth of snow is flashing out jets of light. These are the main features of the beautiful and terrible picture as seen from the forest window; and it would still be surpassingly glorious were the fore and middle grounds obliterated altogether, leaving only the black peaks, the white banners and the blue sky.

Glancing now in a general way at the formation of snow-banners, we find that the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of those we have been contemplating were the favorable direction and great force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the peculiar conformation of the slopes of the peaks. It is essential not only that the wind should move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copious and continuous stream of snow dust, but that it should come from the north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by a south wind. Had the gale that day blown from the south, leaving other conditions unchanged, only a dull, confused, fog-like drift would have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted up over the tops of the peaks in concentrated currents to be drawn out as streamers, would have been shed off around the sides, and piled down into glacier wombs. The cause of the concentrated action of the north wind is found in the peculiar form of the north sides of the peaks, where the amphitheaters of the residual glaciers are. 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.

It appears, therefore, that shadows in a great part determine not only the forms of lofty icy mountains, but also those of the snow-banners that the wild winds hang on them.