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Show 88. its spiritual significance into his narrative. According to John Swett, with whom he lived when he came to San Francisco, the essay caused Muir considerable effort and time. The revised essay presented a more complete picture of the Sierran wilderness, and was more carefully worded and structured, but it was also transformed into more than a simple proof of Muir's glacial theory. When he shifted his moment of enlightenment from his initial view of the glacier to a journey into a crevasse, the essay took on a new symbolic significance. When he contrasted his observations with those of Joseph LeConte, he established the validity of his method of study. Though "the Sierra Nevada of California may be regarded as one grand wrinkled sheet of glacial records," Muir focused not on the records, but on the creators of such records. Where did the glaciers live? For the first time the term "wilderness" became prominent in Muir's writing. . . . the pearly band of summits is the Sierra Alps, composed of a vast wilderness of peaks, variously grouped, and segregated by stupendous canons and swept with torrents and avalanches. Here are the homes of all the glaciers left alive in the Sierra Nevada. Muir educated himself in this wilderness by immersing himself in it. He described himself first as wandering and then as drawn to the glacial womb. Travelling the "path of the dead glacier," noting the lateral moraines which "bounded the view on either side like artificial embankments," he was directed inexorably into a "grand fountain amphitheater." In this |
