Footnotes:
[by the editor of the 1918 original of this text]:
[1] This essay was written early in 1875.
[2] The wild sheep of California are now classified as _Ovis nelsoni_.
Whether those of the Shasta region belonged to the latter species, or
to the bighorn species of Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, is still an
unsettled question.
[3] An excerpt from a letter to a friend, written in 1873.
[4] Muir at this time was making Yosemite Valley his home.
[5] An obsolete genus of plants now replaced in the main by
_Chrysothamnus_ and _Ericameria_.
[6] An early local name for what is now known as Lassen Peak, or Mt.
Lassen. In 1914 its volcanic activity was resumed with spectacular
eruptions of ashes, steam, and gas.
[7] Pronounced Too’-lay.
[8] Letter dated “Salt Lake City, Utah, May 15, 1877.”
[9] Letter dated “Salt Lake City, Utah, May 19, 1877.”
[10] Letter dated “Lake Point, Utah, May 20, 1877.”
[11] Letter dated “Salt Lake, July, 1877.”
[12] Letter dated “September 1, 1877.”]
[13] Letter written during the first week of September, 1877.
[14] The spruce, or hemlock, then known as _Abies Douglasii_ var.
_macrocarpa_ is now called _Pseudotsuga macrocarpa_.
[15] Written at Ward, Nevada, in September, 1878.
[16] See footnote 5.
[17] Written at Eureka, Nevada, in October, 1878.
[18] Now called _Pinus monophylla_, or one-leaf piñon.
[19] Written at Pioche, Nevada, in October, 1878.
[20] Written at Eureka, Nevada, in November, 1878.
[21] Date and place of writing not given. Published in the _San
Francisco Evening Bulletin_, January 15, 1879.
[22] November 11, 1889; Muir’s description probably was written toward
the end of the same year.
[23] This tree, now known to botanists as _Picea sitchensis_, was named
_Abies Menziesii_ by Lindley in 1833.
[24] Also known as “canoe cedar,” and described in Jepson’s _Silva of
California_ under the more recent specific name _Thuja plicata_.
[25] Now classified as _Tsuga mertensiana_ Sarg.
[26] Now _Abies grandis_ Lindley.
[27] _Chamæcyparis lawsoniana_ Parl. (Port Orford cedar) in Jepson’s
_Silva_.
[28] 1889.
[29] A careful re-determination of the height of Rainier, made by
Professor A. G. McAdie in 1905, gave an altitude of 14,394 feet. The
Standard Dictionary wrongly describes it is “the highest peak (14,363
feet) within the United States.” The United States Baedeker and
railroad literature overstate its altitude by more than a hundred feet.
[30] Doubtless the red silver fir, now classified as _Abies amabilis_.
[31] Lassen Peak on recent maps.
[32] _Pseudotsuga taxifolia_ Brit.
[33] _Thuja plicata_ Don.
[34] Muir wrote this description in 1902; Major J. W. Powell made his
descent through the canyon, with small boats, in 1869.
Note from the transcriber:
A phrase Muir uses that readers might doubt: “fountain range,” by which
he means a mountainous area where rain or snow fall that is the source
of water for a river or stream downslope. So it is not a typographical
error for “mountain range”! Another odd phrase is “(something) is well
worthy (something else)” rather than “well worth” or “well worthy of.”
He uses this at least twice in this work.—jg