When you believe of John Muir , you might envision a bearded naturalist on a hike or stomach in front of a glorious natural vista . But Muir was more than a great IE and advocate of national parks — he was also an clever inventor .
As a young boy in Scotland and later Wisconsin , Muir evolve an fixation with pin grass . There was just one problem : His authoritarian forefather , Daniel , filled every waking hour with job and religious educational activity . By the clock time he was 11 long time quondam , John could recite three - quarters of the Old Testament and the entire New Testament “ by painful flesh , ” ashe wrotein his memoir , a credit to the cruel beatings his Padre inflicted on him if he failed to fulfill his duties .
Daniel Muir had little patience for his son ’s budding interestingness in applied science . So John came up with a result : ignite up originally than the rest of the family and adjudicate out ideas he had come up up with while plough during the day . He begin to get up at 1 a.m. to read .
“ Five hours , almost half a twenty-four hour period ! ” he later wrote . “ I can scarce think of any other issue in my life story , any find I ever made that gave birth to delight so transportingly glorious as the possession of these five frosty hours . ” presently he was doing more than read : In the wee hours of the morning , he made a labor - pull through sawmill .
His creativity stoked by his first succeeder , Muir decided to fancy out a style to make the most of his precious break of day hours . The “ early - rising machine , ” as he called it , was not just a way to work on his technology acquisition , it was a path to make trusted he got out of layer . In his memoir of his boyhood , Muirdescribes the inventionas “ a timekeeper which would secern the day of the calendar week and the day of the calendar month , as well as strike like a common clock and point out the hour ; also … have an fastening whereby it could be connected with a bedstead to adjust me on my pes at any hour in the sunrise ; also to start out fires , light lamp , etc . ”
Muir faced several obstacle in produce his ambitious invention , however : Not only were his Day drum full of study , but he lack both the raw materials and his father ’s license to drop time whittle rather of working . For months , Muir hoarded belittled scraps of wood , carve them in every surplus moment , and veil his invention in a supernumerary sleeping accommodation upstairs .
When his Padre finally discovered the machine , Muir thought he would combust it . But after delivering a lecture about the iniquity of spending spare time on “ useless , ludicrous thing , ” he did nothing — and Muir finished it in full view . Despite his naysaying , Muir ’s father even seems to have hear it out . “ This he did repeatedly , ” compose Muir , “ and patently seemed a picayune lofty of my ability to cook up and whittle such a thing , though heedful to give no boost for anything more of the kind in the futurity . ”
Not that Muir needed much boost . Once his early - ascend simple machine was finish , he made even more wooden clocks , including one shaped like a scythe that included the uplifting content “ all flesh is grass . ” Another clock was so large it could be read by the neighbors . ( Muir ’s don put a stop to that , fear that it would draw too many onlookers . )
Once Muir baffle to college , he retain on inventing clocks . His dormitory room at the University of Wisconsin , Madison doubled as a shop , and he invented another alarm clock designed to assist him stand out in school . This desk alarm clock was perhaps his greatest mechanical triumph : Not only did it wake him up in the aurora , it lit a lamp to illuminate the room , and after kick in him a few minutes to dress , served up the first in a stack of subject book — even open up the book up for Muir to read . A clicking deviceheld the book in office for a specify amount of time , before closing it , sweeping it forth , and putting the next Good Book in its place . Muir even modified the machine to respond to the daybreak sun during the summertime , using a chicken feed lens on his windowsill to glow through a thread that would snap and trigger the clock ’s mechanics .
But Muir ’s most impressive invention did n’t imply wheels , cogs , or mechanics . Though he gained a reputation for his engineering , a simple machine accidentthat left him partially blind in 1867 pushed him more and more to his other love , the outdoors . In 1889 , Muirdrew a mapthat would exchange the earth — a mathematical function of the boundary of terra firma in Yosemite , which he conceive should be preserve by the federal government .
This run not just to the universe of Yosemite National Park , but to the Sierra Club — an organisation Muir co - institute on May 28 , 1892 — which has advocated for the conservation of America ’s rude glory for 125 years . Today , the inventor - turn - natural scientist is study one of the grandfathers of American preservation , but it all started with a rarity honed during steal time of day , helped along by some very ingenious clocks .
