Term Papers on John Muir: His Achievements/Journeys

Term Paper Title	John Muir: His Achievements/Journeys
# of Words	1495
# of Pages (250 words per page double spaced)	5.98

John Muir: His Achievements/Journeys

     John Muir worked at a factory in Canada.  He invented time and money
saving machines for the factories.  But one day an accident changed his whole
outlook on life.  As he was tightening a machine belt with a file, the file flew
out and pierced his right eye.  His left eye grew dim to the reaction.
     John's friends and neighbors tried to help him and brought doctors.
Some friends read to him.  Children brought him flowers and listened to his
stories.  He finally began to regain his sight.  His employer, grateful for the
work that he had done for his company, offered John a job as foreman and a
future partnership.  But John gave up the chance to be a wealthy business man
because he wanted to use his precious sight to enjoy the creations of nature.
     On September 1, 1867, John stepped off a train in Louisville, Kentucky.
The next day he set out on foot to walk from Louisville to Florida, a distance
of 1,000 miles.  In Florida, he planned to catch a boat for South America
because he was eager to observe the plants of southern lands.  This was known as
the thousand-mile walk.  During his journey, he would stop to collect plant
samples and write about his observations in his journal.
     John was weak from the trip and thought that he would need much more
energy to travel to South America.  He decided to visit Yosemite Valley, where
he would regain his strength.  He took up the job as a herder there and began to
explore the area.  Then he got a job as guide to the Yosemite.  Muir quickly
became an expert on Yosemite.  John believed that glaciers had helped in the
formation of the valley.  People began to pay attention to his ideas.  Some
agreed and some didn't.  John spent years studying glaciers and tracking
glaciers in the Sierra Nevada.
     In 1874, Jeanne Carr introduced John Muir to Louie Wanda because she
wanted John to leave his lonely life.  John first tramped the wilderness of
California, Nevada, Utah, the Pacific Northwest, and Alaska.  Then he decided
that he should settle down and went to visit Louie Wanda in the Alhambra Valley.
They got married and had two daughters, Annie and Helen Wanda.
     John worked on Louie's farm for many years, but started to miss the
wilderness.  Louie Wanda saw what was happening to John and decided to let him
travel to Alaska.  He visited the Alaskan tribes and Glacier Bay.  In the next
ten years of visit to Alaska, Muir would track glaciers and observe them.
     John Muir will spend the rest of his life writing books about nature and
speak out for nature.  He will suffer the lost of his wife and abate his grief
by observing a pertrified forest.  John Muir really was a man of the mountains.
     I believe that John Muir was a very hard working and determined man.
The fact that he overcomes the struggles of his life to accomplish all that he
did makes him an even more remarkable man.  I think that it is great that there
is a man that would speak out for such a wonderful thing like nature in a time
where people didn't care.  He has accomplished so much in his life that I am
surprised that he is not as well-known.  He should be written about and taught
about more.  John Muir can inspire a person to care more for nature and become
more considerate and passionate to it.
CHILDHOOD
     John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, on April 21, 1838.  He had two
older sisters named Margaret and Sarah and two younger brothers named David and
Daniel, Jr. and twin sisters named Mary and Annie.  They were all born in Dunbar
except a younger sister, Joanna, that was born after they moved to the United
States.  John's father was Daniel Muir and John's mother was Ann Gilrye Muir.
     Daniel was a man of strong feelings.  His religious beliefs made him put
aside fun and music thinking that they were the devil's workshop.  He believed
that mealtime was a sacrament and that idle talk and laughing had no place at
the table.  John was forced to memorize a passage from the bible every day.  He
would be beaten if he did not recite them cor...

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