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Tonight we're taking a stroll with one of the first American environmentalists, John Muir, and his book A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf,

edited by William Frederick Badeh, published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York,

1916.

Let's begin. Introduction. John Muir, Earth Planet Universe.

These words are written on the inside cover of the notebook

from which the contents of this volume have been taken.

They reflect the mood in which the late author and explorer undertook his thousand-mile walk to the Gulf of Mexico a half century ago,

century ago.

No less does this refreshingly cosmopolitan address,

which might have startled any finder of the book. the He never was and never could be a parochial student of nature. Even at the early age of 29,

his eager interest in every aspect of the natural world had made him a citizen of the universe.

While this was by far the longest botanical excursion which Mr Muir made in his earlier years,

it was by no means the only one.

He had botanized around the Great Lakes, in Ontario, and through parts of Wisconsin, Indiana,

and Illinois. On these expeditions he had disciplined himself to endure hardship for his

notebooks disclose the fact that he often went hungry and slept in the woods or on the open prairies,

...