| OCR Text |
Show 307 analysis of the actual condition of the Sierran forests. Then he would call for reform. He knew what he wanted to say, but he wanted to make a substantial and unimpeachable statement. Asa Gray had addressed the American Association for the Advancement of Science on "Sequoia and its History" after visiting the Sierra in the summer of 1872. He thought of the trees as pre-Tertiary, a remnant of an older botanical era. He said that they were probably dying out, since he saw few young trees and noted that the groves he visited were small. He compared them to coast redwood, and concluded that they would not be wiped out as rapidly as the redwood, which was "too good to live long." Muir wished to reevaluate not only Gray's scientific thesis, but also his fatalistic attitude about the future of Californian forests. He would revise Gray's assessment of the Sequoia's history, but would be more deeply troubled by the social assumptions Gray had made. It is no wonder that Muir was deeply troubled about the relationship society would bear to wilderness in the future. His friends in San Francisco were worried about the inequalities within society, but they did not consider the impact of progress on Nature, or the final result of even moderate economic development. Henry George, for instance, believed that competition was the necessary means by which economic life led toward social progress, even if he was not an extreme social Darwinist like William Sumner. Muir was tempted to accept this historical necessity too. As he traversed the rich forests of the Sierra, he looked at the trees and wondered |
