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Show 422 description of a place which could only be reached after two days of riding. Now, of course, it is one of the most popular camping spots in the Sierra, being only an hour and a half from the Valley by car or five hours from San Francisco. It also contained, until recently, the most populous public campground in the National Parks system. In 1890, such recreational possibilities seemed a long way off. Muir also devoted considerable space to four "capital excursions" from the Meadows, to peaks, passes, and canyons, all of them described with painstaking care as reasonable, enjoyable journeys. This essay was largely an enumeration of features and points of interest. But it worked, and for the present that was sufficient. Congress accepted Muir's proposal in October, 1890. The second part of the essay dealt with Hetch Hetchy: Muir felt that the American public, the public which had been taught to accept one dead Sequoia tree at an exhibition, needed reeducation about their need for more than just one of anything. One tree did not constitute a forest, and one Yosemite did not constitute a full sample of the Sierran canyons. His rhetoric echoed that of the Studies. Most people who visit Yosemite are apt to regard it as an exceptional creation, the only valley of its kind in the world. But nothing in Nature stands alone. She is not so poor as to have only one of anything. The explorer in the Sierra and elsewhere finds many Yosemities, that differ not more than one tree differs from another of the same species. So Americans had to learn that seeing one Yosemite didn't mean |