Early American Naturalists: Exploring the American West, 1804-1900

This history is the first to detail the lives, adventures, and discoveries of pioneering American naturalists such as Lewis and Clark, Martha Maxwell, Spencer Baird, Asa Gray, John Torrey, Florence Bailey, John Burroughs, and John Muir - all of whom wandered purposefully, with pen and ink in hand, through the unknown reaches of the American continent. They sketched and wrote about the natural wonders that they encountered while struggling against oppressive heat, storms, wild animals, hostile tribes, disease, exhaustion, a lack of maps, and countless other woes.