MUIR, John, geologist, inventor, naturalist, and explorer, b. in Dunbar, Scotland, 21 April, 1838; d. in Martinez, Cal., 24 Dec, 1914. Daniel Muir, his father, was a grain merchant in Dunbar. The Muirs trace their ancestry back through distinguished Scottish lines, while the family of Gilderoy, through which John Muir was descended through his mother, Ann Gilderoy, carried in its veins some of the best and bravest blood of the Highland chiefs who made Scotland's history. In his native town, by the stormy North Sea, the boy first showed that love of nature in the wild which later in life found expression in books that treated of trees, flowers, animals, and birds with the authority of a scientist, and yet with a tenderness that always revealed his love of anything and everything that grew or lived in the forest, the fields, and particularly in the mountains His inborn spirit of romance was fostered by his environment, for his
playground as a boy was the famous old
Dunbar Castle, to which King Edward fled
after the defeat at Bannockburn. Built more
than a thousand years ago, the old castle has
so rich a legend and historic story that it was
unavoidable for the expressionable boy to come
deeply under its influence. In 1850, when he was
twelve years of age, he came to America with
his father, a sister, and a brother. His mother
and three younger children were to follow
later, when a home had been made for them
in the New World. The sailing-ship on which
they crossed the Atlantic was six weeks and
three days journeying from Glasgow to New
York. After considerable deliberation and
almost deciding to go to the backwoods of
Upper Canada, the father took the little family
to Wisconsin, taking up a farm claim in the
heart of the wilderness near Fox River. The
last hundred miles from Wisconsin was made
by wagon over the trackless prairie, just
after the spring thaw, and John Muir never
forgot how they stuck in the mud again and
again, and how doubtful it seemed many times
whether they ever would reach their destination. They got there at last, however, and the boy worked on the farm, besides doing his part toward clearing the forest, with a vigor and industry that were a matter of course with the sturdy Scottish lad. But his mind extended far beyond the borders of the farm. He had access to good books, and he not only devoured them, but he remembered what he read. At sixteen he turned his attention seriously to inventions, having early shown a bent in that direction. His first achievement in this way was a self-setting sawmill, which he made with tools fashioned by himself — bradawls, punches, and a pair of compasses — out of wire and old files; and a fine-tooth saw, which had formed part of an old-fashioned corset, capable of cutting hickory and oak. Afterward he invented water-wheels, curious door locks and latches, thermometers, hygrometers, pyrometers, clocks, a barometer, an automatic contrivance for feeding the horses at any required hour, a lamp-lighter and fire-lighter, an early-or-late-rising machine, and so forth. All these things were done either in the small hours of the morning, which he took from his sleeping time, or in odd moments during the day when farm work permitted him to use his whittling-knife to make tangible realities of his ingenious ideas. He contrived to obtain an appointment as school teacher in the periods when farm work was slack and with the money thus earned added to what he made in farming, he entered the University of Wisconsin, in 1860, for a scientific course, and paid his own way for four years. At the end of that period he began a botanizing tour which continued for years. He went into Canada, around the Great Lakes through Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. Then he travorsed the Southern States, visiting Cuba, and finally striking out for California. The Far West had always held a fascination for him, and when he arrived there in April, 1868, he was content to go no further. He made the Yosemite his home. Before reaching there and while exploring the swamps of Florida for certain rare plants, he was smitten with malarial fevor. This illness laid him up for some time and compelled him to abandon a plan he