Title:
Letter from John Muir to [Harry Fielding] Reid, 1891 Oct 20.
Creator:
John Muir
Publisher:
University of the Pacific Library Holt-Atherton Special Collections. Please contact this institution directly to obtain copies
of the images or permission to publish or use them beyond educational purposes.
Contributor:
[Harry Fielding] Reid
Date:
1891 Oct 20
2008
Type:
Text
Format:
Image/jpeg2000
Identifier:
muir07_0332-md-1
Source:
Original letter dimensions: 33 x 21.5 cm.
Language:
eng
Coverage:
Martinez, [Calif]
Rights:
Copyrighted
The unpublished works of John Muir are copyrighted by the Muir-Hanna Trust.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://library.pacific.edu/ha/forms
Muir-Hanna Trust
1984
Transcription:
(Original in possession of Prof. Harry Fielding Reid) Martinez, Oct. 20, 1891. My dear Prof. Reid: Yours from Atlantic
City came a week or two ago. I am very truly obliged to you for the fine set of pictures so suggestive of the good icy days
in Glacier Bay, and I hope you will let me know how I can repay your kindness now or at any time. I saw Captain Carroll in
San Francisco a few days ago and brought him up sharply hard a starboard and made him give up all his icy news. He says that
the ice is jambed in the bay still more closely than last year and that the Muir Glacier has receded a hundred feet or more
since we were there. Can you give me or Cap. Carroll your bearings so as to determine the rate of recession approximately
from year to year. I looked over my notes carefully after returning home and found that the ground we were encamped on was
covered with ice and that the stream near camp had no free existence 12years ago. My camp was on the moraine near those old
stumps in the vicinity of one of your stations ; across the camp stream half a mile from our last summer's camp - which then
was as near the ice as I could possibly find dry ground. The ice in Granite Canyon and also in two other canyons to the S.E.ward
pitches down just as it does toward the big lake and wolf Valley and all the moraines which now seem lost are stationary indicating
that formerly during a period of greater glacial abundance the ice flowed towards Glacier Bay, though in the case of the big
Wolf Valley where I had my adventure with your crazy cook the water drainage is the other way. This will account for the moraines
now stretching from Glacier Bay to Wolf Lake and the other smaller lakes over the wasting portion of the main glacier. My
Sierra article will be out in the September Century. I am anxious to see your report. Remember me to Mrs. Reid and all the
chimney builders. Ever yours, JOHN MUIR (Envelope addressed to Professor Harry Fielding Reid, Case School ofApplied Science,
Cleveland, Ohio.)